An Australian ski area has announced plans to open for the 2017 season a week early after heavy snow hit ski areas in the south east of the country in the last 24 hours.
The southern hemisphere's largest ski area in terms of uplift, Perisher in New South Wales, has announced it will open some terrain next weekend (June 3rd) because of the snow and low temperatures which have allowed the Vail-owned centre to run its snowmaking systems at full blast too. Perisher has had 20cm of fresh snow cover – a very big snowfall by Australian standards.
Australian ski areas almost all open each season for the 'Queens Birthday Bank Holiday long weekend which this year falls on the 10th/11th of June. Snow cover can be problematic this early in the season however and it's not unusual for the areas to be open but unable to offer snowsports.
Falls Creek is pictured above last night.
In fact several Aussie areas had invested in special all-weather snowmaking systems this year so that they could offer snowsports even if there was no natural snowfall and it as too warm for snowmaking. However, so far, that is not looking like it will be an issue for the 2017 opening weekend.
The early opening of Australian ski areas follows the early opening of centres in Chile over the past week after heavy June snow there El Colorado and Valle Nevado in Chile have both opened about a month early after nearly a metre of snowfall. Ski areas in New Zealand have also seen some good pre- season snowfalls.