Hotham Alpine Resort, Victoria, Australia, looking decent today...
The 2025 ski season is in full swing in the southern hemisphere with most Chilean and Australian resorts open after heavy snowfall, while a few northern hemisphere areas like Tignes and one Scandinavian centre are open.
The Snow Headlines - June 26th
- Tignes opens for the 2025 summer ski season.
- Most of Chile's ski areas now open, most of Argentina's set to open this weekend.
- Fresh snowfall reported in northwestern US and Canada.
- Another 40cm+ for Aussie resorts.
- Only one centre is still open in Scandinavia.
More snow forecast for New Zealand and South America.
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World Overview
The 2025 season kicked off in Chile last weekend, and almost all Chilean centres are now open; some having posted over 2 metres of snowfall this week.
The snowfall hasn't really extended to the East so Argentinian areas, by contrast, are currently struggling to open. Las Lenas to the south though, which says it has had a lot of June snow, plans to start its 2025 season this Friday.
Across the South Pacific, more centres in New Zealand have also been opening whilst the remaining resorts in Australia opened at the weekend. There was more snowfall in the country this week and resorts are able to open more and more terrain.
In the northern hemisphere there are around 10 areas open, more than half in the Alps, with Tignes the latest to join them.
Bases are getting thin at the few ski areas still open in North America (Western US) and Asia (Japan).
There is also just one area still open in Scandinavia. There was a freak start-of-summer snowfall in north-west North America but otherwise plenty of sunshine and highs touching +30C.
Southern Hemisphere
Australia
Australia continues to enjoy a great start to its 2025 season with more fresh snowfall over the last few days and more slopes opening across the country. That includes Charlotte Pass and Selwyn Resort which opened for the first time this year at the weekend.
The largest ski area, Perisher, now has about a third of its terrain open including runs in all four of its sectors; however Falls Creek, with 45% of its runs open already, perhaps has a few kilometres more piste available.
Thredbo is posting the deepest base so far at 90cm.
After the recent snow showers, which saw more than 40cm on Wednesday/Thursday for most areas, sunny skies are expected through the weekend with temperatures in the -6 to +6C range.
New Zealand
New Zealand's 2025 ski season continues to pick up the pace with more of the country's club fields opening last weekend and most of the final few that haven't opened yet, including big-name Treble Cone, opening this coming weekend.
Mount Hutt is posting some of the best numbers in the southern hemisphere at present with almost 90% of its slopes open already and a healthy base depth of 1 – 1.5 metres. Most of the country's other areas have opened 10-35% of their slopes so far.
It's looking good for the week ahead with a big snowfall hitting as we publish this week's report that's expected to deposit up to 60cm on the South Island by the weekend then lighter snow showers continuing through to next week.
Argentina
Argentina's season is yet to really get off the ground, but that is expected to change over the next few days as most of the country's resorts plan to open their season on the last day of June.
So far only southerly Cerro Castor down near Tierra del Fuego, the world's most southerly ski area, has opened some slopes, with another resort, Cerro Bayo, opening nursery slopes only.
The problem has been a lack of adequate snowfall, but that does now seem to be changing with heavy falls bringing several feet of snow this week to many areas and expected to continue through to the weekend.
Big players including Las Leñas, which is reported to have had over a metre of snowfall at its base and over 2 metres on the upper slopes through June, open for the season this weekend
Chile
It's been a good week in Chile with more snowfalls, most of the country's resorts opening last weekend and already-open areas adding more terrain thanks to the good conditions.
Temperatures have been and will continue to be, below freezing 24-7, getting as low as -15C on high slopes overnight.
Most ski areas have more than a metre of snow lying on their slopes with Valle Nevado and Nevados de Chillan both posting more than 75% of their ski areas / 30km+ of runs open, the most in South America at present.
Lesotho
After the major snowfall and nearly week-long access road closure that followed, Lesotho has enjoyed cold but largely dry weather conditions, but including some very low, -10C or below temperatures overnight.
Afriski still has no webcams and no published snows reports and rarely publicises current images of its slope but is believed to have around a 500-800m run complete.
Northern Hemisphere
The Alps
Tignes joined Les 2 Alpes and Val d'Isere to become the third French ski area currently offering summer skiing. That beats Italy's choice of two – Cervinia and Passo Stelvio, along with Austria's one (Hintertux) and Switzerland's Zermatt, the same glacier ski paradise accessed from Cervinia.
Hintertux and Zermatt are posting the most terrain open, around 25km and 15km of slopes respectively, for the rest it's less than 10km each. The past week has brought plenty of sunshine, with temperatures staying above freezing overnight even as high as 3500m altitudes, then daytime highs have crept up above +10C. The result of that has been that showers there have been have fallen as rain or sleet more than snow.
Scandinavia
The Stryn summer ski area in Norway ended its 2025 season at the weekend and the Fonna summer ski area hasn't opened for its 2025 season yet and doesn't look like it will do so now, so that only leaves Scandinavia's highest slopes at the Galdhopiggen glacier still open for summer skiing.
Galdhopiggen reports the snow lying about a metre deep, all runs open and some fresh snowfall in the last seven days. Conditions are set to continue mixed with a freeze-thaw temperature range and more precipitation forecast.
USA
There was some surprise start-of-summer snowfall in western and northern North America with ski areas as far south as Lake Tahoe posting snowfall at the Summer solstice, with heavier accumulations, up to 20cm, reported further north in the Canadian Rockies.
That was very much against the general trend of hot, sunny weather, with daytime highs nearing +30C at some ski areas.
There are two centres still open, the main one is Timberline in Oregon, which has a few miles of slopes open high on Mt Hood, the best conditions from 7am to 11am daily. Copper Mountain in Colorado also has its hike-to terrain park which is open to the public from Fridays to Sundays each week.