Last week the northeastern U.S. was pelted by record snows forcing Washington, DC to close its doors for nearly a full week. Across the continent, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games is experiencing the opposite problem — unseasonably warm weather has caused heavy rain to fall where there should be snow.

To save the Games, Olympic organizers were forced to truck massive quantities of snow from higher elevations and replace base snowpack on snowboard and freestyle courses with over 1065 bales of straw. Even with these heroic efforts weather conditions have wreaked havoc with alpine events, causing organizers to cancel downhill training sessions in order to protect the soggy slopes.

While weather should not be confused with climate, research shows that climate change has already lead to more extreme weather in the U.S., and unseasonably warm and wet weather in Vancouver is consistent with forecasts of regional climate change impacts.

According to Ian Bruce, the lead climate researcher at the David Suzuki Foundation, the snow season in British Columbia has become 4-5 weeks shorter over the past 50 years.

David Wallenchinsky, author of the Complete Book of the Winter Olympics, has noted that the lack of snow in Vancouver this year “leads to the larger issue of, in the long run, are we going to have to re-think where we put the Winter Olympics because of global warming?

The irony of the situation caused some to quip that the Winter Olympics should have been held in Washington, DC. But holding the Games to the northeastern U.S. would likely be just as big a disaster.

The winter sports industry has been struggling with the impacts of climate change for years, and research shows that fewer than half of the ski resorts in the Northeast will be viable as early as next year. Only one Northeastern ski resort is predicted to remain viable by the end of the century under a high greenhouse gas emission scenario.

Luckily, some prominent names in the ski industry are speaking up. Professional snowboarder Jeremy Jones started the non-profit Protect Our Winters to educate the winter sports community about the perils of climate change and spur innovation to make the industry more sustainable.

It’s not too late. If we act now to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the northeastern U.S. winter sports industry — which contributes $7.6 billion annually to the region’s economy — can be salvaged.