WORLD SNOW ROUNDUP #205
Issued: 25 August 2021
By Patrick “Snowhunter” Thorne
European Roundup
North American Roundup
Asia Roundup
Southern Hemisphere
WORLD OVERVIEW
There’s major snow news from three continents this past week. Most notable for this season is, finally, a huge snowfall in the Andes.This is two-thirds into a 2021 season that has been marked by drought-like conditions and ski areas struggling to open much terrain, some not opening at all. Snow totals vary but the largest accumulations being reported have reached 1.2 metres (4 feet) in Argentina. New Zealand too has had further heavy snowfall giving by far the best conditions of the season there, and in the Northern Hemisphere ski areas in the North American Rockies north and south of the Canadian/US border have had dustings of snow up high, raising anticipation of the start of the 21-22 season, which for some glacier areas in the Alps is, they hope, now just over three weeks away.
In Australia and New Zealand, pandemic lockdown remains a major issue. More cases in New Zealand led to an extension of the three-day national lockdown to a week-long on Friday, then on Monday by another three days to (so far), this coming Friday. The country’s leaders have also announced that its borders will not be re-opening now until at least 2022, so that takes us well past the end of the season. In Australia, the state of Victoria has begun its 8th lockdown and plans to continue that into September, close to the end of the season. Only ski slopes in Tasmania remain open.
The number of continents where ski areas are currently open will drop from four to three (it was six months ago) after the coming weekend as it’s the last of winter 2021 for Afriski in Lesotho, the only centre currently open in Africa.
EUROPE INTRODUCTION
We still have only four glacier ski areas open in Europe but there is growing excitement as the start of autumn is now less than a week away which means several dozen ski areas in the Alps and Scandinavia are preparing to open for their 21-22 seasons, the first due to start in just a few weeks now. Even those not planning to open until early October have been pointing out that their opening dates are now “only 50 days away.”
The last glacier ski area open in Scandinavia has now closed so we have removed this section until centres start to reopen there in the autumn.
ALPS
ALPS REPORT| The weather in the Alps has been largely benign over the last seven days, with mostly sunny skies. However, clouds bubbling up later in the day have led to more reported ‘light dustings’ of snowfall up on the continent’s glaciers.
The year-round Hintertux glacier (0/105cm / 0/42”), in Austria, continues to report the largest amount of terrain open, some 20km of slopes. The Molltal glacier is closed temporarily to the public due to a lack of snow cover but has a slope bookable for private use by race teams. A third Austrian glacier, Dachstein, has cross-country skiing available at present and most of the country’s other five glacier centres are preparing to open over the next five weeks.
There’s nowhere currently open in France. Les 2 Alpes had hoped to stay open to this weekend but was forced to close its glacier slopes due to lack of snow cover. It and Tignes are aiming to re-open in October.
For Italy, Passo Stelvio (0/150cm / 0/60”) remains open and you can also take a lift from Cervinia (0/150cm / 0/60”) to access the Klein Matterhorn slopes shared with Zermatt (0/150cm / 0/60”); there are 15km (9 miles) of slopes open there.
Finally, the other Swiss option currently open is Saas-Fee (0/270cm / 0/108″) with its open ski slopes diminished to 7km (4 miles) but still reporting the deepest base at an open area in the world at present.
ALPS FORECAST| It’s looking a little cooler and a little more changeable in terms of weather for the week ahead, with temperatures in alpine valleys dropping to the low teens Celcius, and staying around freezing or below up at glacier level. Some rain but more snowfall is expected, interspersed with sunny spells.
NORTH AMERICA
NORTH AMERICA INTRO| Fresh snow was spotted in the Rockies north and south of the US/Canada border in the latter half of last week, just days after the last ski area still operating its 2020-21 ski season in North America ended its operations.
Sunshine ski area near Banff and Nakiska, the closed ski area to Calgary, both in Alberta, Canada, posted images of a dusting of snowfall shown on higher slopes in their webcams. It could be counted as the first snow of the 21-22 pre-ski-season period, but like all snow in summer, is unlikely to stick around. There was a second, bigger fall on Sunday evening into Monday at Sunshine which left things looking very white indeed and the resort posted pictures of the first people to hike up to ski the fresh cover.
Snow was also reported for the high peaks in the Colorado and Utah Rockies to the south, with Alta and Snowbird, in Utah, among areas reporting snow dusting their slopes at the end of last week.
It’s a reassuring sight as much of the news from western North America in recent weeks and months has been of extensive forest fires, often shutting down ski areas’ summer operations, either due to proximity danger or more commonly due to poor local air quality caused by smoke.
Ski areas like Arapahoe Basin, Wolf Creek and Keystone are also usually among the first to open in North America each winter. Sunshine and Nakiska are usually among the first areas in Canada and North America to open each season, often either in the last week of October or the first week of November.
For the past few months, only the Palmer permanent snowfield at the Timberline ski area in Oregon has been open for snowsports. It closed last Sunday though, three weeks earlier than hoped, but having stayed open longer than expected after record heat in the region in June and July.
NORTH AMERICA FORECAST| A mixed bag of weather for the western US where we would hope to see ski areas starting to open in about two months, all being well. There will be more days when temperatures will be close to freezing and drop below, and more overnight snow flurries are expected as we move into September and the start of meteorological autumn.
SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE INTRODUCTION
The good news for the Southern Hemisphere has definitely been in the Andes this past week, where after more than 10 weeks, with almost no fresh snow and those areas that could open skimping by on the bare minimum snowfall, there has finally been a ‘decent dump’ with up to 1.2 metres (four feet) of snowfall reported at the end of last week. That’s really transformed ski slopes in Argentina and Chile, allowing resorts that only had beginner terrain open to open much more of their mountains at last and in some cases resorts that had been forced to close temporarily to re-open. It’s just a shame that it’s all come close to the end of winter 2021 here, already beleaguered by being the second pandemic season. It also looks to have come too late for several centres including Argentina’s Las Lenas, that haven’t been able to open for two seasons now; last winter with the pandemic, this for lack of snow.
The news isn’t good in Australia either with ski areas in Victoria closed once again by a new regional lockdown set to extend at least to the start of September. That means all Aussie areas are currently closed for the first time, other than a few small centres in Tasmania. Ski areas have also been closed all of the past week in New Zealand where the initial three-day national lockdown was extended to a week and is currently up to 10 days.
In Southern Africa, skiers in Lesotho have been making the most of the final few days of the season, boosted by heavy snowfall last week.
AUSTRALIA REPORT| It’s been another week of bad lockdown news in Australia with Victoria announcing its 7th statewide lockdown at the weekend, this one due to last a fortnight to midnight on September 2nd. With New South Wales also in a statewide lockdown, this means that all of Australia’s larger resorts are closed, whilst, frustratingly for skiers and boarders, conditions remain excellent. Some centres tried to make the most of it in Victoria with Mt Baw Baw (35/35cm / 14/14”) keeping the lifts running until noon, with lockdown due to begin at 1 pm on Saturday. Not so much fresh snowfall in the past week. Although there has been some, but with all slopes open and good cover thanks to the heavy snowfalls of the first half of this month. Mt Hotham (45/120cm / 18/48″) had been posting the deepest snow in the country until it closed with Falls Creek (60/110cm / 24/44″) having the most terrain open anywhere in the world at present, with nearly 50klm (30 miles) of runs. Only Perisher (35/80cm / 14/32″), in New South Wales, now in its second week of closure, had more terrain open. Not every Australian ski area is closed though. There are a few smaller centres in Tasmania that are still operating. Ben Lomond, on Tasmania, one of the world’s most southerly ski areas, is one of them and has had light fresh snowfall over the past few days following a larger accumulation a week ago.
AUSTRALIA FORECAST| After a sunny start to the week the weather has clouded over with a new front moving in and a light-to-moderate snowfall forecast for most Australian areas through to the weekend. Accumulations of 5-10cm (2-4 inches) of snow are likely daily for the next few days with temperatures dropping back well below freezing.
NEW ZEALAND
NEW ZEALAND REPORT| The bad news is that New Zealand’s lockdown has been extended twice since we reported last week and the hope that Kiwis would be back on the slopes by the weekend were thwarted. As we publish this week the latest lockdown extension is due to end in time for this coming weekend, but no one is holding their breath. In the meantime, frustratingly, conditions continue to be the best they have been all winter at most of the country’s areas, and we are starting to run out of time with September the last full month of the season for most. Some areas report up to 50cm (20 inches) of fresh snowfall in the past few days which has taken the 10 day total past the metre mark for some, more than many had had all season up to that point. When they can re-open conditions will be amazing and Mt Hutt (40/225cm / 16/90”) is likely to still have the most terrain skiable around 400km (25 miles). But Ruapehu on the North Island, which tends to run its season a little behind the South Island centres with its slopes open to the latter half of October and sometimes into November, is catching up fast. Turoa (75/176cm / 30/71”) has the country’s second deepest snow now and neighbouring Whakapapa (63/1-1cm / 25/40”) was just building up to opening a lot more terrain after all the fresh snow it has had when lockdown began.
NEW ZEALAND FORECAST| Snowy times for much of the coming week on the South Island with more snowfall forecast at most areas pretty much daily through to the weekend when skies will hopefully clear (and, hopefully again, lockdown end). Temperatures should remain a few degrees below freezing day and night at most centres too, keeping the snow in good shape. Snowfalls won’t be huge, typically 2-8cm (1-3 inches) a day, with most seeing a bigger fall (15-20cm/6-8 inches) on Friday. For the North Island sunnier weather over the next few days with the snowfall expected to arrive here later in the week and continue into the weekend.
ARGENTINA
ARGENTINA REPORT| We may be three-quarters of the way through the usual ski season dates, but South America, and particularly Argentina, has finally had the snowfall they’d been waiting for all winter. This has led to resorts re-opening terrain that had had to be closed during the previous few months of dry and sometimes warm weather. In a few cases resorts forced to close completely have re-opened.
The biggest dump reported in the last few days of last week was 1.2 metres (four feet) in total at Caviahue but after a dry, sunny few days at the start of this week, there’s more snow on the way. The country and continent’s largest area by uplift, Catedral near the ski town of Bariloche, reported 70cm (28”) of new snow and switched from struggling to open terrain beyond its beginner runs to needing to spend time on avalanche mitigation work to be able to re-open slopes previously closed for lack of snow. La Hoya (20/50cm / 8/20”) was one of those that had temporarily closed and was able to re-open thanks to the fresh snowfall. The news isn’t all good from the snow though. Although there are plenty of pictures of the southern ski area of Las Lenas finally deep in snow after having green slopes for months, there’s no sign that the resort intends to open for the final month of the season. Instead, it now looks like it will miss its second full season, last year due to the pandemic, this year more due to the lack of snow (it announced in June that it had planned to open in early July). That said, there are some rumours it will open, just no sign of it at the time of writing beyond there being a lot of snow in the webcams.
ARGENTINA FORECAST| After a few days lull the snowfall is expected to return for more areas in Argentina from Wednesday/Thursday as the belated change in the weather patterns continues. Temperatures should remain subzero with 25-50cm (10-20″) more snow for most centres by the weekend, more than many of them received in the first few months of the season and taking the 7-day totals for many past the metre (40″) mark and for some up towards 2 metres (7 feet).
CHILE
CHILE REPORT| It has been one of the best weeks of the 2021 season to date in Chile with, as in Argentina, some ski areas able to re-open thanks to a week of snowfall which has brought up to 60cm (two feet) of snowfall to some areas. Nevados de Chillan (20/80cm / 8/32”) is one of those to have re-opened. Other centres have increased the amount of terrain available. Antillanca (40/130cm / 16/52”) is posting the best snow depths but Corralco (30/70cm / 12/28”) has the most terrain open in the country, some 25km (16 miles) of runs. El Colorado (20/45cm / 8/18”) reported almost 50cm (20”) of fresh snowfall since the start of the weekend, La Parva (15/35cm / 6/14”), another to re-open, nearly 60cm (two feet) of snowfall in the same period.
CHILE FORECAST| A mixed bag for the week ahead without much snow in the forecast. It should stay cold though and clear, well below freezing in fact until the end of the week. At that point though temperatures are set to climb to 5-10 degrees above freezing down at the mountain bases which could reverse some of the recent snowfall gains, although higher up the mountain it should remain cold enough.
SOUTHERN AFRICA
SOUTHERN AFRICA REPORT| We’re into the last week of the season now at Afriski in Lesotho (20/50cm / 12/20”) and therefore Africa, at least southern Africa’s 2021 season with Tiffindell over the border in South Africa unfortunately not opening at all for a second season. It’s been a good end run-in to the season there after the heavy snowfall a week ago and virtually all-terrain looks like it will remain open to the end on Sunday. The weather has been back to the normal dry sunny weather that of course re-dominates here but temperatures have remained low for the time of year, just a few degrees above freezing.
SOUTHERN AFRICA FORECAST| It looks like the final days of the 2021 ski season in Africa will play out dry and sunny. Temperatures are set to climb to higher single-digits above freezing for the final weekend of 20/21 this Saturday and Sunday.
