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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.

La Plagne has reported work progressing well on its new Roche de Mio lift.

Following the construction of the new glaciers gondola lift over the past few years, La Plagne is now replacing its Roche de Mio gondola to improve passenger flow and comfort on a key route up to the top of the slopes, connecting with the glaciers lifts.

The €36 million investment is part of a plan announced in 2019, which aims to create more of a year-round
business for the future through major projects such as the modernization of the Glacier sector.

The new Roche de Mio lift will not only be a bigger, faster and more comfortable gondola with 10-seat cabins and direct drive, but the route will be tweaked for better fluidity, and there'll be an intermediate station.

The lower station will now be located on the Plagne Bellecote snow front at 1933m, and the upper station near the Carella lift at 2714m, with the intermediate station located by the Col de Forcle ski lift at 2275m.

The route will therefore be less direct but will allow the creation of a summer leisure base with the development of the Forcle lake with a water ski lift, restaurant and terrace. It should also allow for better skier distribution around the mountains.

The first section of the lift is 1942 metre, the section another 2,600 metres and uphill capacity will be 3,140 people/hour. The lift is due to open next year.

Val Thorens is spending €16m on an upgrading of their Les 2 Lacs chairlift ahead of next winter.

The new lift will be a gondola, carrying 61 cabins, each of which will have 10 seats.

The lift, which is scheduled to open on the planned first day of the season, 23rd November, will be one of the fastest in the world to date, travelling at 7 metres per second.

That means a quicker ascent and greater capacity of 3,500 skiers per hour

The new lift will arrive between the La Bee zipline and the end of la Moutière chairlift giving ski-in access to Grand Fond.

It has also been designed to be easier for beginners to use with a departure gate designed for kids.

The Cime Caron 3200 area at the top of the resort's, and the 3 Vallees, slopes is also being overhauled.

A new state of the art building at 3,200m (pictured top) will be unveiled including a new restaurant, wine bar, viewing deck with snack bar and an 80m2 mixed use space for events and exhibitions.

The building, located right next to the Cime Caron Cable Car linking Val Thorens with Orelle will also offer 360 views including Mont Blanc.

Snow has begun falling again in Australia after more than a fortnight of dry weather.

The intense winter weather has brought blizzard-like conditions across the country's ski slopes and it's hoped the multi-day storm will deliver up to 50cm by the end of this week.

"The powder hounds are in for an awesome week at Hotham with freshies (fresh snow) to be found all across the resort" said Alex Pankiw, Hotham Marketing Coordinator where the morning temperature was -5.2 degrees and is heading to a chilly top of just -3 degrees. "We've been waiting a while, but Mother Nature has definitely come to the party. We're expecting at least 50cm of fresh snow this week and some of the best pow days of the season," Pankiw added.

Australian ski areas have been struggling with low snowfall in the first six weeks of the season leaving the country's slopes only 5% to 40% open.

Mt Buller has only been able to open a few kilometres of runs so far with Falls creek and Mt Hotham posting the highest terrain percentages open at around 40% each. Perisher, with a third open across all four of their sectors, has the most terrain kilometres available thanks to their suize and large snowmaking system, about 25km of piste.

Hopefully this week's snowfall will allow all Aussie centres to open much more terrain.

Saalbach Hinterglemm is believed to be working on a number of new lifts ahead of hosting the Alpine Skiing World Championships next February.

The famous Austrian resort typically installs at least one new high speed, high capacity chairlift or gondola each year, and now operates more of these lifts than almost any other ski resort on the planet.

This summer the Zwölfer-Nordbahn is being upgraded to a 10-seat gondola lift. The nearly 2km lift will see its capacity increase to 2600 skiers per hour, about 20% more than the old gondola it replaces. The previous lift on the route was installed 35 years ago. Journey time is also cut from seven minutes to just over five.

Two more new 10-seat gondolas are also due to be installed, replacing the Streuböden and Lärchfilzkogel lifts.

The Department of Justice, part of the US Federal Government, is reported to be looking at the planned purchase of Colorado's Arapahoe Basin ski area by the Alterra Mountain Company.

The department last looked at Arapahoe Basin when a deal to buy it nearly three decades ago when it ended up blocking Vail Resorts' planned purchase of it along with Breckenridge and Keystone as Vail Resorts were starting their rise to domination of the US ski industry. Vail got Breckenridge and Keystone but Arapahoe Basin was sold to a Canadian company which has since morphed into the business now planning to sell the resort to Alterra.

At the time the Department of Justice said their aim was to maintain competition to ensure prices stayed as low as they could be for Colorado skiers.

In the years since, Vail Resorts has grown to operate 36 US ski areas along with resorts in Australia, Switzerland and Canada and North America's largest, Whistler Blackcomb. In Colorado they operate Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Crested Butte, Keystone and Vail.

The Alterra Mountain Company, only established in 2018 by the owners of aspen Snowmass, operates 18 North American resorts including Colorado's Steamboat and Winter Park ski areas.

Arapahoe Basin is one of the world's highest and most snowsure ski area with a season that typically lasts from late October to early June.

The Department of Justice, part of the US Federal Government, is reported to be looking at the planned purchase of Colorado's Arapahoe Basin ski area by the Alterra Mountain Company.

The department last looked at Arapahoe Basin when a deal to buy it nearly three decades ago when it ended up blocking Vail Resorts' planned purchase of it along with Breckenridge and Keystone as Vail Resorts were starting their rise to domination of the US ski industry. Vail got Breckenridge and Keystone but Arapahoe Basin was sold to a Canadian company which has since morphed into the business now planning to sell the resort to Alterra.

At the time the Department of Justice said their aim was to maintain competition to ensure prices stayed as low as they could be for Colorado skiers.

In the years since, Vail Resorts has grown to operate 36 US ski areas along with resorts in Australia, Switzerland and Canada and North America's largest, Whistler Blackcomb. In Colorado they operate Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Crested Butte, Keystone and Vail.

The Alterra Mountain Company, only established in 2018 by the owners of Aspen Snowmass and others, operates 18 North American resorts including Colorado's Steamboat and Winter Park ski areas.

Arapahoe Basin is one of the world's highest and most snowsure ski area with a season that typically lasts from late October to early June.

Courchevel's iconic La Saulire cable car is set to reopen this winter following a €10M upgrade.

The lift's cabins will have a new panoramic design and more comfortable layout for the 130 passengers each can carry.

The lift will ascend at a fast 11 metres per second, giving a capacity of 1,500 skiers per hour.

The new La Saulire cable car is expected to open on December 6, 2024, Courchevel's planned opening day.

Iain Martin from The Ski Podcast spoke with Landry Tirard, Head of Ski for the lift company S3V, in Episode 229, shortly before the opening of the new lift.