Australian ski areas are celebrating the biggest snowstorm of winter so far, as a major weather system moves up from the Antarctic, bringing snow and strong winds with it.
The quickly moving cold front is expected to bring the most significant snowfall of the year with up to 50cm of snow forecast to accumulate on the country's slopes by Monday morning.
"I'm here at Hotham and you can see it's just unbelievable. It's absolutely dumping, got fresh snow all over the resort, fresh turns everywhere. It's going to be awesome" said Hotham Skier Emmie Phillips.
The fresh snowfall follows another system which brought 20-30cm of snow earlier this week. It saw snow depths on higher slopes jump from less than 50cm at all areas to more than 70cm now. Hotham reports it has had 60cm (2 feet) of snow so far from the two storm systems this week.
It is very welcome news as Australian areas have struggled to open terrain after limited natural snowfall through the first half of the season.
The country's largest centre, Perisher in New South Wales, which has the most open to date, is now edging towards passing the 50% of its slopes open mark, having reached 46%, the most in the country. It seems likely all resorts will be opening more terrain after the storm is due to clear through on Sunday.
If the snow piles up as expected through the next 36 hours it also seems likely the first 1m+ upper base depths of the season will be reached.