Australian ski areas are celebrating after long-awaited snowfall arrived over the past 24 hours.
The falls aren't huge so fall but appear to signal a change in the weather with more forecast next week. In Victoria there was 10cm of fresh snowfall for Hotham and 5cm at Falls Creek.
"This snowfall shows how things can change with the weather and offers insight into next week's forecast of snow – conditions can and do change and today's snowfall is a testament to that and a promising sign of things to come," said Betony Pitcher, Marketing Manager at Falls Creek Ski Lifts.
It has been an up and down season with little snow around for opening at the start of June, then a series of good snowfalls built bases and allowed several centres to fully open from kid June through to mid-July, but then above average temperatures over the past month set things back again.
Selwyn Ski area had had to close all slopes for lack of snow, Mt Baw Baw had very little left and other centres had seen snow cover and open terrain diminish.
"It's great to see the snow return to the mountain" said Emily Smith, Marketing Manager at Hotham, adding, "A wintry blast delivered 10cm this morning and the village is buzzing. With more snow in the forecast over the next couple of weeks we're looking forward to some great August skiing"
At Perisher, which is still posting the deepest base in the southern hemisphere at 1.3m after those earlier snowfalls, and the second most terrain open (about 50km) in the world too, Olivia Mason, Marketing Coordinator, commented,
"There's a lot of happy faces here at Perisher today and the snow dances have paid off! We've had 5cm of snow so far with steady snowfall throughout the day with more in the forecast."