Southern Hemisphere Weekly Roundup #243

Australia's Ski Season Countdown: Sunshine Prevails as Snowmakers Await Temperature Plunge

• In the Southern Hemisphere, ski areas in the Andes are experiencing significant early snowfall, with more centres opening ahead of schedule, particularly in Chile.
• Australia's ski regions have been mostly dry and sunny, prompting reliance on snowmaking systems as the season approaches, although a temperature drop and precipitation are expected soon.
• New Zealand is gearing up for its upcoming ski season, with pre-season conditions showing promise for snowmaking, but hopes remain high for a substantial snowfall in the coming weeks.

SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE INTRO

The Andes have seen more big snowfalls over the past week and more centres are due to open early for the season this coming weekend. As with the four centres in Argentina and Chile that already opened 3-5 weeks ahead of their planned season start dates, some will be opening just for a few days and then shutting down again until; the official season starts around June 20/21, others will open every weekend until then, or every day. The end of last week saw more huge snowfalls reported in the Andes, particularly in Chile, in the mountain due east of the capital Santiago, where 72-hour accumulations of up to 1.5m (five feet) were reported. Saturday marks the start of meteorological wintertime in the southern hemisphere and it's also the official season start day of Southern Africa's only operating snow resort. Like centres in Australia though, where the season is due to begin a week later, it looks set to be reliant on snowmaking rather than natural snowfall. New Zealand's season start is still over a fortnight away but here the weather has been more mixed with some more snow showers and subzero temps, but also some unwelcome warm spells.

AUSTRALIA REPORT

Conditions have remained mostly dry and sunny across Australia’s ski regions over the last week with no sign of a big dump ahead of the start of the 2024 season in just over a week. However overnight lows have just about been cold enough at times for snowmaking systems to fire up. Perisher reported they were masking snow at every opportunity and other centres said the same. Mt Bullers's five all-weather snowmaking guns seem a wise investment in the current scenario. The season is scheduled to start at the end of next week for most of the country’s resorts so they’ll all be keeping a close eye on the forecast now with the hope of colder and hopefully snowier weather. In other Aussie ski news, the country's oldest and highest ski area Charlotte Pass, says it will delay its planned opening by a fortnight into early July due to a fire at its waste processing plant.

AUSTRALIA FORECAST

The warm, dry, sunny weather looks to be with us for most of the rest of this week but a front moving in at the weekend should bring the long-awaited temperature drop and some precipitation, for a time at least.

NEW ZEALAND REPORT

The start of the season in New Zealand is just over a fortnight away and pre-season conditions have been fairly good with temperatures mostly just a few degrees either side of freezing up in the mountains and some light snow showers reported between mostly clear, sunny skies. So ski areas that have had snowfall are mostly clinging on to it and it's also cold enough for snowmaking at times, but a big snowfall over the next week or two would be a useful boost to conditions. Mt Hutt said it started snowmaking on Sunday ahead of the season start, its powerful system producing over 100 lites of snow per second, that's 6 tonnes of snow per minute! Meanwhile although there’s nowhere in NZ open yet for skiing, Whakapapa say they’ll offer sledging, thanks to their all-weather snowmaking system, from this coming weekend.

NEW ZEALAND FORECAST

Quite wide-ranging conditions with some promising overnight lows down as far as -8C although daytime highs may still be touching +8C countermanding that a little. Snow showers too in the forecast, alongside sunny spells.

ARGENTINA REPORT

Argentinian ski areas have seen more snowfalls over the past week, if not the huge dumps they saw in the first half of May. Whilst Chile's centres have been opening early for their 2024 season and Argentina's biggest centre by uplift, Catedral near Bariloche, was first in the southern hemisphere to open (limited terrain for a couple of days), there's no sign of any other Argentinian centres breaking ranks and opening before planned season start dates in three weeks.

ARGENTINA FORECAST

It’s a mixed picture across Argentinian ski areas with most seeing subzero overnight lows and snow showers to end the week, but some daytime highs getting back up to +10oC, although more widely it’ll be closer to +5C. In the south, temperatures are now subzero 24-7 down near Tierra de Fuego where Cerro Castor will see overnight lows dip to -15C.

CHILE REPORT

It’s been another snowy week in Chile with many areas reporting over a metre (40”) of fresh snowfall and some as much as 1.5m (60”) ahead of the weekend. Portillo, due to open for the season in just over three weeks, posted 107cm (43”) in 72 hours (including 84cm – nearly 3 feet – in 24 hours at the heart of the storm), and there were similar totals for ski areas like Valle Nevado and La Parva, the latter posting 110cm (44”). Things quietened down by the weekend with a return to drier, but still largely cold weather. El Colorado is the latest Chilean ski area to announce it will be opening early for the season, this coming Thursday, May 30th. Lagunillas also posted that it has started its 2024 season and a sixth centre, La Parva, says it plans to launch its season the next day after all that snowfall. Slopes will be open there from 3,100m down with the Alpha, Manzanito, Swallow and Parva Chica up and running. They join already open (although some only at weekends) Corralco (40/120cm / 16/48"), Nevados de Chillan (80/95cm / 32/38") and Antillanca (20/80cm / 8/32"). It means that Chile will have more centred open than any other country in the world from Sunday, June 2nd …until Australia’s areas open en masse at the end of next week anyway.

CHILE FORECAST

After the heavy snowfall, it's looking fairly settled with just very light snowfalls bringing a few centimetres (an inch or two) of light snow. Overnight lows down to -%C, daytime highs around +5C.

SOUTHERN AFRICA REPORT

After the early opening of ski centres in South America over the last few weeks, what was supposed to have been the start of the southern hemisphere's 2024 season, June 1st for Afriski in Lesotho, is coming up this weekend. At the time of writing, there's no sign of snowmaking getting underway as yet and daytime temperatures are still getting into double digits Celcius, but Afriski can make a lot of snow in 48 hours so may be gearing up for a big push at the end of this week (there’s no snow forecast), if temperatures drop enough.

SOUTHERN AFRICA FORECAST

Sunshine forecast through to opening day and daytime highs around +10C. Hopefully, overnight lows forecast to get down to -3 or -2C should allow the snowmaking arsenal to fire up.