With the start of the Australian ski season a fortnight away, there’s been consistent snow across the country’s main ski areas, which forecasters are saying should continue for most of the coming week.
Mt Buller’s and Perisher’s snowmaking teams were among those at several Aussie resorts that took advantage of the cold, sub-zero conditions to fire up the snowguns for the first time for the winter and add to the flakes falling from the skies. Perisher (pictured above after an initial snowfall a fortnight ago and below today) reported 5cm of natural snowfall.
“We’ve put in more snowguns over on Shakey Knees, Wombat and also Family Run this year so it’s wonderful to see them already on the job today,” said Laurie Blampied, General Manager of Buller Ski Lifts.
Hinting at a possible early opening, Blampied added, “I like the look of the forecast and am not ruling out the possibility of welcoming guests up here before the official start of the season on the long weekend if this continues.”
The long weekend in question is the Queen’s Birthday long weekend commencing Saturday Sat 11 June and traditional the starting weekend of the Australian ski season whether or not there’s any snow cover.
The fresh snow started falling after a report in Australian media that the national weather forecasting service was expecting a milder and wetter winter than usual due to a recent switch from El Nino to La Nina ocean system in the Pacific.