Southern Hemisphere Season Start Imminent, But Where?
Southern Hemisphere Season Start Imminent, But Where?
Published : 05-Jun-2023 09:49
Exactly which ski area will open first for the 2023 ski season in the southern hemisphere is still uncertain with days to go to the scheduled start.
New Zealand's Mt Hutt has the actual first named date – this Friday June 9th – but the country had a warm end to May and although a snowstorm hit on Sunday, hopes of metre-plus accumulations from the long term forecast delivered just 10cm of snowfall when it eventually arrived and the forecast for the next few days is dry and not that cold.
A final decision has not yet been made but talk has already begun of the date being an aspiration rather than a fixed date and it's noted the season start was delayed 10 days in 2022.
Most of Australia's ski areas plan to open on Saturday, June 10th, for a long weekend with Monday 12th a public holiday to celebrate King Charles III's birthday. However, here too after several good may snowfalls the end of may and start of June have bee mild to date. It is getting cooler but cam images show incomplete runs with piles of machine made snow. It seems some will have limited terrain open, but not a lot. That's not unusual for an Aussie season start though.
Nor is having now snow at all, which is the plan for Selwyn ski area, opening on Saturday for the first time since 2019, having been closed for rebuilding since a bush fire in early 2020.
In a normal winter one or both of southern Africa's two areas, Afriski in Lesotho and Tiffindell in South Africa, would have opened by now, but Tiffindell has not operated since before the pandemic and Afriski has announced it won' make snow this winter and will offers now play only with any natural snow (which has already been falling).
In the Andes there have been some big lore-season snowfalls and tourers have been up in the mountains but resorts like Chapelco and Las Lenas which reported lover a metre of snowfall have not yet started running their lifts.
Ski lifts have already run in New Zealand this year, with the Manganui ski field opening for three days in May following a good early snowfall in the country, so that could be counted as the season start, now we're waiting for ski areas to open and stay open.
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