Alpine skiing-French meteorologist's lifelong cloud-watching shapes Games forecasts

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 8 : Sitting on a primary school bench in western France, Thierry Robert-Luciani would gaze at the clouds — not to daydream, but to decode them.

Driven by his early fascination with weather and a family link to Italy’s Dolomites through his paternal grandfather, the Frenchman went on to study atmospheric physics before training as a forecaster and eventually settling in the mountains.

Now 67, he serves as the meteorologist for the Alpine skiing events at the Milano-Cortina Olympics, a role shaped by decades spent reading the volatile skies above some of the sport’s most demanding slopes.

“From a very young age, around eight or nine, I was fascinated by the weather without quite realising it,” Robert-Luciani told Reuters.

“I sensed intuitively when showers were coming and constantly watched the clouds — not in a poetic way, but trying to understand what they were telling me in meteorological terms.”

Born in Brittany and initially drawn to academic research, he was steered towards operational forecasting after mentors recognised his aptitude for prediction.

That path led him to the Dolomites through an international training agency for forecasters and to an avalanche centre near Arabba, 1,600 metres above sea level in the heart of the Sella Ronda, where immersion in the high mountains refined his craft and instincts.

“To apply meteorology in the mountains, you have to understand them,” he said. “Weather there is very changeable, very volatile. Living in that environment allows you to notice the signs and make better forecasts.

“In the mountains, small-scale effects dominate,” he added. “Slope exposure, wind acceleration, thermal inversions — these are things global models don’t always resolve, so you