Australia Sees Huge Snowfalls To Start 2022 Season

The southern hemisphere’s 2022 ski season – the first that looks like it might be close to normal since 2019 – has got underway with some huge snowfalls.

Excitement levels are particularly high in Australia where most ski areas opened a week earlier the planned, last weekend after a big pre-season snowfall last week. The snow has now started falling again and several areas have now had more than a metre of snowfall in the past week, making it now one of the snowiest weeks of all time in the country.

Among claimed stats are “the snowiest start to an Australian ski season for 22 years” and “one of the two snowiest starts to the season ever”. The snow has been falling at a rate of up to half-a-metre in 24 hours.

It’s looking good in the Andes too where the season is due to kick off in the next few weeks. Portillo in Chile (below), one of several areas that has hardly opened since 2019, reports 90cm (three feet) of snow falling over the weekend in a pre-season fall there.

Unfortunately New Zealand has not seen such great weather so far and Mt Hutt, due to open this coming weekend, says opening day is now a “moving target”.  However an ‘Antarctic Blast’ is forecast here too to end this week which could get winter back on target. 

In Southern Africa the ski area of Afriski in Lesotho (below) has opened for its 2022 season, but Tiffindell in South Africa has indicated it will miss its third straight season but is hopeful of re-opening in 2023.