Nevados de Chillán, Chile, with heavy snow this week (and there's more on the way).
The 2025 southern hemisphere ski season is now fully underway with openings across Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and Chile following major snowfalls, while summer skiing begins in Europe and two US ski areas remain open as others close after long seasons.
The Snow Headlines - June 19th
- Ski season underway in Argentina, the last southern hemisphere ski nation to open for 2025.
- Australian ski areas open more terrain: great start to 2025 season.
- New Zealand's season gathers pace with more centres opening.
- More Chilean resorts open after big snowfalls.
- Tignes about to open for the 2025 summer ski season.
- Riksgransen re-opening for midnight sun / summer solstice ski days.
- 7-month ski seasons end at Arapahoe Basin and Mammoth Mountain, US.
- Two US ski areas still open.
There is more snow forecast for Australia, Argentina and Chile!
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World Overview
The southern hemisphere's 2025 season has really taken off over the past week with most of New Zealand's ski areas starting their seasons last weekend and a huge snowstorm hitting the Andes, delivering over a metre of snowfall in 72 hours to some resorts, leading to a scramble to open for most Argentinian and Chilean ski areas.
At the same time, already-open Aussie areas have been consolidating their good start to winter 2025 by opening more terrain.
Unsurprisingly it's a different picture in the northern hemisphere with warm weather dominating. Three of the five areas that were still open in North America ended their long seasons last weekend leaving two centres still open.
Six glacier areas remain open in the Alps and Scandinavia with a seventh, Tignes, expected to join them from this weekend when it re-opens for a month-long summer ski season.
Southern Hemisphere
Australia
Australia's ski areas have been consolidating following the great start to the weekend with the heavy snowfall the weekend before last.
Resorts reported cumulative totals of nearly a metre and have also had snowmaking systems working whenever possible to build bases.
All centres opened more terrain last weekend after initially having just a few lifts and mostly easy runs available. Most are now reporting between 10 and 25% of their terrain open (although Hotham has reached 45% already) and base depths of up to 75cm, very healthy numbers for mid-June.
There was more snowfall earlier this week, as much as 30cm more, but there's been plenty of sunshine too. Overnight lows continue to allow for more snowmaking.
Some of the last Aussie resorts yet to open, including Charlotte Pass and Selwyn, are scheduled to start their lifts spinning for 2025 from this weekend.
New Zealand
New Zealand's season proper got underway on Saturday with Cardrona, Coronet Peak, Mount Hutt and The Remarkables on the South Island opening for 2025.
To be clear, these were not the first to open in the country as the Stratford Ski Club had opened their Manganui ski field last weekend before rain stopped play.
Whakapapa on the North Island has had a snow play area maintained by all-weather snowmaking open at weekends too, however, they are the first to fully open daily for the season.
Mount Hutt opened with an impressive 125cm base and 80% of its terrain open, a much higher percentage than any other southern hemisphere ski area yet open. However, there was a final twist in its aim to be the first in the country to open. Having first been forced to abandon two planned early opening dates, it was then forced to also miss its original planned date, last Friday 13th, after dangerous avalanche conditions above its access road led to a third delay decision.
So, Mount Hutt eventually opened a day later than planned, with the others on Saturday. By then weather conditions couldn't have been more perfect – a beautiful sunrise above the clouds, with cold temperatures and no wind.
At Cardrona, the snowmaking guns were on full blast and bragging rights were up for grabs for the 2025 First Chair t-shirt winners, with some of them lining up at the bottom of the Cardrona access road from 1 am that morning. When the road opened at 5.30 am, it was all on, and the six winners finished with a foot race to the McDougall's Chondola lift line to claim their spot on the first chairlift ride for the season.
It stayed largely dry and sunny for most ski areas for the first half of this week before a fresh wave of snowfall got underway. Conditions are now more unsettled with another snow-bearing front forecast to move in imminently.
Argentina
Argentina's season is just about to get underway with Cerro Bayo, which has already opened but without skiing, saying it will start running its lifts this Thursday, June 19th, with Chapelco following on June 20 and the world's most southerly ski area, Cerro Castor, this Saturday 21st.
Their decision follows some big snowfalls earlier this week which saw most Argentinian areas get at least 50cm of snowfall, some quite a lot more.
Big players Catedral near Bariloche as well as Las Lenas to the south are also expected to open imminently.
Chile
Chile (and South America)'s season started as we were publishing last week's report with Valle Nevado opening a week earlier than planned last Friday, June 13th. It timed it to coincide with a major snowstorm hitting the Andes, which saw many areas get over a metre of snowfall by Monday.
Resorts further south like Nevados de Chillan did particularly well, reporting 1.2m in a little over 36 hours; it's opening this Friday.
Valle Nevado's neighbours in the Tres Valles (3 Valleys of The Andes - linked ski areas near the capital Santiago), La Parva and Corralco are now open.
The famous resort of Portillo plans to start its season as planned this Saturday, June 21st. It's been sunnier but stayed very cold – as low as -15C – in the days since the snowstorm.
Lesotho
After the drama of the snowfall and closed access roads at the start of last week, it appears things have settled down in Lesotho with a return to predominantly dry weather. Overnight lows have continued to dip well below freezing allowing snowmaking to continue and it's believed a run several hundred metres long is currently available.
More sunshine is forecast with overnight lows down as far as -8C.
Northern Hemisphere
The Alps
There are still five glaciers open in the Alps this week. A sixth is due to open this coming weekend, with Tignes due to be the third French resort to open for summer skiing, joining Les 2 Alpes (which hasn't actually closed since it opened last autumn) and Val d'Isere.
You can also ski at Austria's Hintertux, Passo Stelvio in Italy and on the slopes of Matterhorn Glacier Paradise above Cervinia and Zermatt.
Hintertux reports the deepest snowpack remaining at 2.5m and the most terrain open, about 27km of slopes.
It's been a mostly sunny week, the freezing point up between around 3,000m and 4,000m. There was a front move-through on Sunday/Monday which brought a few centimetres of snow up high, but rain to most levels. Afternoon highs have been hitting +10C at 3,000m altitudes. There's more sunshine forecast.
Scandinavia
Norway's Galdhopiggen and Stryn glacier ski areas remain fully open with all runs complete, but the third area, Fonna, isn't operating its lift at present, though is reported to be open for those prepared to skin up.
It's not been the best week with lots of blustery wind and rain showers at Stryn, with daytime highs around +10C but it has been close to freezing with snow showers reported overnight.
Higher altitude Galdhopiggen has seen a lot more sunshine and similar temperatures.
In addition, the famous Swedish Arctic Circle ski area of Riksgransen has just re-opened for four-days and three-nights of skiing during 24-hour daylight over the summer solstice, including at midnight, through to Sunday.
USA
Arapahoe Basin in Colorado and Mammoth Mountain in California both ended their 7-month plus 24-25 ski seasons on Sunday. The Beartooth Basin summer ski centre in Wyoming also closed its first season in two years, in its case after only three weeks, not making it to July as it had hoped.
The remaining option for skiers in North America still wanting a lift up the slopes is the Palmer Snowfield at Timberline on Mt Hood in Oregon.
You can also access an impressive hike-to terrain park, open to the public Fridays to Sundays, at Colorado's Copper Mountain.
The weather has remained mostly full sun for another week (and that's the forecast for the coming days again too) with temperatures getting well into the teens above freezing, but overnight lows on high slopes have still been dropping down to zero Celcius, sometimes a few degrees below.