Mount Hutt, New Zealand, where winter has arrived...
New Zealand gets snow, more in the forecast too.
The Snow Headlines - July 27th
- Snowfall on high slopes in the Alps despite record heat by the Med.
- Mammoth Mountain announces its season will continue into August for third time ever.
- Snowfall in New Zealand allows more resorts to open for the season.
- Final French summer ski area closes at the end of 2023 run.
- Chile's Lagunillas ski centre re-opens after fresh snowfall in South America.
More Snow in the forecast for New Zealand
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World Overview
For the first time this winter we're able to report that ski areas in New Zealand have seen the most snowfall in the past week, with up to 80cm accumulations.
The much-needed snowfall allowed some centres that had not yet been able to open for winter 2023 to finally do so, although inevitably the news wasn't all good with the snowstorm ending with rain at lower elevations causing saturation of existing snowpacks at some centres.
Aussie, Argentinian, Chilean and Southern African ski areas all reported periods of snowfall too in the last seven days, just not so much as New Zealand.
North of the equator the heat continues to be the main factor, but seven centres look like they'll remain open into August in Europe and North America. Mammoth, announcing an August (6th) closing date after a nine-month 22-23 season, is doing so for only the third time in its 69 year history.
There was even snowfall reported on glaciers and high slopes in the Alps mid-week as temperatures fluctuated wildly in southern Europe.
Southern Hemisphere
Australia
Australian ski areas are still in very good shape following the cold and snowy past six weeks.
Perisher has about 50km of slopes open, around 70% of its terrain and the second most in the world. It's also one of the few areas posting a metre-plus upper slope base, boosted, as all Aussie areas were, by fresh snowfall at the end of last week.
Falls Creek has almost as much terrain open and other areas like Hotham, Mt Buller and Thredbo all report great conditions and almost everything open for each of them. Other than the snow showers it's been mostly sunny with temperatures fluctuating between around -6 and +6C.
New Zealand
The long-awaited snowstorm hit New Zealand last week and continued through to Monday with some resorts seeing up to a metre of snowfall. It meant that some of the country's areas that had not managed to open like Porters and Mt Lyford were able to open for their 2023 seasons at last.
Mount Hutt and Coronet Peak are each reporting the most terrain open in the country, about 30km of runs a piece, which also represents around three-quarters of their skiable terrain. That said, Mt Hutt was forced to close on Monday with the big weekend snowstorm trailing off to rain at lower levels which again saturated its snowpack – an issue that caused it to close for a few weeks in the latter half of June.
Turoa on Mt. Ruapehu on the North Island reports the deepest snowpack in the country so far at nearly 1.5 metres (five feet) but only has about a third of its terrain open. They say that's due to issues recruiting staff though and they'll open more terrain as fast as they can get lift staff.
South America
Argentina
It has been quite a snowy week in Argentina with Las Lenas, which had been particularly suffering from low snowfall totals, excitedly posting social media images of heavy snowfall down to resort level.
There had been huge accumulations up high, apparently, but until recently it has been more rain and sleet at the base, limiting what could open. Reports of 50-100cm falls this week and pictures of waist-deep powder so it looks like the official depth stats have not caught up yet. It has though gone from 5 to 20km of slopes open, although that's still only about half the groomed total.
South America's largest resort Catedral dropped its amount of terrain reported open to about 65km (40 miles) from a high near 100km, but that's still the most in the world at present.
Chile
Some fresh snowfall in Chile, heaviest on more southerly mountain slopes, allowed the remainder of the country's centres that had not yet opened to do so for the first time in 2023.
Valle Nevado has the most terrain open, about three-quarters of its full area and totalling about 30km.
Portillo is posting the deepest base in the country at about 1.2 metres (four feet). The past few days have seen a return to sunshine and some rather warm temperatures at low elevations although still dropping well below freezing overnight and up high in the day too.
Africa
There's been fresh snowfall and cold temperatures reported by the Afriski resort in Lesotho, but the centre is still not believed to be running its ski lifts this winter, just offering sledging. The region's other centre, Tiffindell in the Western Cape area of South Africa, has not operated since 2019 and shows no sign of reopening, for business rather than snowfall reasons.
Europe
Alps
There have been some extremes of weather in southern Europe this week; Wednesday saw reports of fresh snowfall on glaciers and high slopes in the alps while temperatures remained in the +40s around the Mediterranean.
The last of the three French ski areas that were open from early May to last weekend for late spring and summer skiing has now closed so that's it for France until winter 23-24 kicks off in October or November, depending on autumn snowfall.
Tignes made it to its planned summer closing date although snow cover on the glacier had dropped from 5 metres in March to 30cm now.
So we are down to four glaciers open in August, despite, so far, the intense summer heat – although snow cover stats are noticeably dropping fast at several and are now below a metre at Austria's Hintertux and Italy's Passo Stelvio. Switzerland's Saas Fee and Zermatt say their glacier snow depths are still up at around the two-metre mark though.
The hot sunny weather has eased slightly and there have even been snow flurries reported overnight above 3,500m, but temperatures are still climbing to high single figures Celsius above freezing above 3,000m by the afternoons, back below zero overnight though.
Scandinavia
Norway's Galdhopiggen ski area remains the only centre still open in Scandinavia, up on the region's highest slopes, although the Fonna Glacier, which closed to the public earlier this month, still seems to be operating for team training.
Galdhopiggen aims to stay open through summer to the end of August but last year had to close for around two months as it was too hot. This year it has been cooler (some more fresh snow flurries this week) and there's still a fairly good base of around 6 feet (Neatly 2 metres) so hopefully, it won't have to.
North America
It currently looks like we'll have two ski areas open in the USA in the first week of August.
The day after last week's report was published, Mammoth Mountain announced it would stay open until August 6th, just the third time into August in its nearly seven decades of history. There are just a couple of lifts still open, operating out of Main Lodge daily, weather permitting and serving about three miles of runs, only now suitable to intermediate to advanced level skiers.
The base at Timberline ski area in Oregon had been dropping fairly fast in recent weeks but here too it currently looks like operations will continue for at least the next week, with no closure date yet given for the resort's Palmer Snowfield on Mt Hood in its case.