It’s Snowing Hard in Australia

The Snowy Mountains of south-eastern Australia have had another dump. 30cm fell overnight, and there’s been more during the course of today.

Needless to say, the video teams were out early. Here’s the footage from Perisher.

According to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, there’s a 70% chance of snow again on Wednesday above 1400m (Perisher’s base lodge is at 1720m). However, the temperatures will be creeping back up, with daytime highs up to +3C tomorrow. Spring is nibbling at the edges of the season now, which is due to run all the way until October 5 in Perisher. So the new snow is very welcome.

All in all, it’s been an exciting time lately in Perisher, with several national ski–racing teams training in the resort – including the Americans, the Italians, and the Swiss.

The Winter Games are underway in NZ

In NZ, it’s the week of the Winter Games, which run until August 30. The skiing and snowboarding events are being held in Cardrona and Coronet Peak, and Sunday saw the men’s and women’s ski half-pipe finals in Cardrona. French master Kevin Rolland took gold in the men’s event, getting some amazing height on his opening tricks en route to victory…

Snow-wise, the last big hit came on August 18-19, which favoured the Wanaka resorts and dropped a magnificent 46cm on Treble Cone. Here’s how it was looking after the dump.

Meanwhile, Cardrona had around 20cm of light, cold wintry snow – and it looks completely irresistible in this video….

Since then it’s been milder, but the Snow Gods came back on Monday night and topped up the South Island resorts with a dusting of around 5cm. Snow depths are still excellent across the region, with 115-160cm of cover at The Remarkables and a stonking 142-322cm at Treble Cone.

They’re expecting more snow in the Andes

It’s more than two weeks since the season-changing dump in the central Andes, but they’re still finding powder. This photo was posted by Bryan Iguchi at the end of last week in Valle Nevado near Santiago…

Further south, there’s been snow more recently. Las Lenas in Argentina reported a top-up at the weekend, as did Chapelco. In Chapelco, there’s currently 25cm on the lower slopes, 165cm mid-mountain, and 175cm at the top. More snow is on the way this week, too.

There’s been snow at altitude in the Alps, but…

At altitude, we’ve snow a couple of times in the Alps in the last ten days.

Pictured below was the Col de l’Iseran beyond Val d’Isere on August 16 – taken by John Yates-Smith.

And this was the Hintertux glacier on Friday.

Check out the weekend snow in Cervinia too, courtesy of the latest video from the Warren Smith Ski Academy.

It’s been great to see the glaciers get some respite from the scorching summer – but I’m afraid Mr Blue Sky is coming back, along with a southerly airflow which is going to send the freezing point shooting upwards. In both eastern and western Alps it will be up above 4500m by the end of the week, so the new snow will be melting on the glaciers. We’ll have to wait a while longer for the Alps to start cooling off properly.

	France: The Grand Motte glacier above Tignes has now closed, but Les Deux Alpes is open for summer skiing until Saturday.
	Switzerland: currently Zermatt claims 130cm of snow at 2900m. Here, 17 lifts are currently open, serving 14 pistes. You can also ski on the glacier above Saas-Fee.
	Austria: two glaciers are currently open in Austria for skiing – Hintertux, and the Molltal. On the Hintertux glacier, the snow is up to 75cm deep on the pistes, and 18km of pistes are open. After snow at the end of last week, temperatures will be rising sharply again as another heatwave takes hold.
	Italy: there’s currently lift access from Cervinia to the high-altitude pistes between Italy and Switzerland.
	Andorra: Andorra’s ski resorts are closed.
	Western USA: summer skiing is on offer at Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood in Oregon.
	Western Canada: Whistler’s short glacier season on Blackcomb mountain finished on July 26.