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The snow is finally here, but with classes in full swing, it may be too late for that ski trip.

The lack of snow over break hurt not only students' plans for ski trips but also the ski resorts hosting the students and their employees.

For college students working at ski lifts, no snow meant no work, which hurts especially because winter break lasts only one month.

Jim Engle, owner of Sunburst Ski Area in Kewaskum, Wis., said he schedules employees based on business and has not needed a full staff.

Dave Figge, an employee at Sunburst and sophomore in the College of Health Sciences, saw a cut on the amount of shifts he received.

"I missed five or six shifts which ended up costing me $150," he said.

His employer lost even more money, though. According to Figge, large groups with plans to visit Sunburst for skiing and tubing had to cancel.

"The tubing hill is a major moneymaker and it has been closed," he said.

Rain and warm weather kept skiers off the slopes but even when resorts could make snow, it never occurred to some people that snow was being made.

"When there is no snow in the backyard people do not seem to think about skiing," Engle said.

Sunburst has been closed two or three days because of rain and snowmaking, according to Engle.

Snowmaking is a high-energy process and requires lower temperatures for it to actually work.

Alpine Valley in Elkhorn, Wis., had to close from Dec. 18 to Christmas, said General Manager Mark Williams.

"It was one of our busiest weeks," he said.

Alpine Valley has a hotel and banquet facilities that people use while skiing at the resort, and the warm weather kept those people away, according to Williams.

According to experts, the warm weather Southeastern Wisconsin experienced over break was due to El Niño and global warming.

Brent Lofgren, physical scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich., described El Niño as a natural weather occurrence that comes around every four to six years.

It causes warmer winter weather for the Midwest because it removes a dip in the jet stream over Canada and the United States. This dip usually brings cold weather from Canada and Alaska, but during El Niño it doesn't exist.

According to Lofgren, the warm air during break came from the south.

Lofgren discounted the idea of global warming.

"There isn't much difference between last year and this year because of global warming," he said. "It's more gradual."

John Young, professor of atmospheric and oceanic science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Wisconsin climatologist, said the weather goes through a series of regime changes where there are cold streaks and warm streaks.

These regime changes have nothing to do with El Niño, which has a separate impact, he said.

"They change week to week and month to month," he said. "It is a product of erratic weather patterns."

The lack of snow over break did not prevent some people from making plans for future ski trips.

The Marquette Avalanche Outdoors Club is planning a ski trip for the upcoming semester, according to Susan Hawbaker, the president of the club and a senior in the College of Nursing.

Previously, the club went to Colorado and it was a successful trip despite weather conditions, she wrote in an e-mail.

The snow on the ground, irrelevant now that break is over, gave one student worker the chills.

"I was a little annoyed to return to school and have to walk through the snow," Figge said.

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