J2Ski Snow Report - September 5th 2024
J2Ski Snow Report - September 5th 2024
Published : 05-Sep-2024 06:26
An early dusting for Breckenridge, Colorado, USA
We're getting that autumn feeling; first snows high in the Alps and the Rockies, as spring arrives and the ski season winds down in the southern hemisphere.
The Snow Headlines - September 5th
- Fresh snow falls on high slopes in the Alps.
- Meltdown for Australia's 2024 season, most resorts close early.
- August snowfall in Arizona.
- More heavy snowfall in Argentina.
- September snowfall in the Rockies as Colorado resorts ready snowmaking equipment.
- South Africa's season ends on schedule at Afriski in Lesotho.
Early autumn snow forecast for Europe, and late season top-ups for New Zealand
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World Overview
The start of meteorological springtime in the southern hemisphere has seen more snowfall across the region's ski nations, but severe gale force winds and mild temperatures bringing torrential rain before the snow have also been factors for New Zealand and Australian ski areas.
In the latter's case, it led to more Aussie areas announcing they'd be closing at short notice so now more than half have closed - up to a month earlier than planned.
It's a better picture in the Andes where there's been heavy fresh snowfall; and base depths as well as open terrain are all holding up.
In southern Africa, the 2024 season ended on Sunday at the only open ski area, Afriski in Lesotho.
In the northern hemisphere, Sunday saw the start of meteorological autumn/fall (and of September) which should see the number of ski areas open, (currently, officially, four) more than double by the end of the month.
The four glacier areas currently open in the Alps have continued to battle warm temperatures, but there was good news – kind of – as we complete this weeks report with the first snows of September spotted above 3,000m in the western Alps. 'Kind of' because it's the cold end of a torrential rainstorm that's brought flooding to some valleys.
Across in North America nowhere is open at present but there's been fresh snow up high as far south as Arizona and anticipation continues to build for the start of the 24-25 season, hopefully next month. Again, as we complete this week's report Colorado ski areas are posting images of fresh snowfall there.
Southern Hemisphere
Australia
Sadly, the warm August weather has led to more than half of Australian ski areas closing early over the past week.
Mounts Baw Baw and Buller closed on Sunday, whilst Selwyn Resort said it's likely to abandon it's hoped-for re-opening.
Hotham closed on Wednesday leaving just Perisher, Falls Creek and Thredbo still open of the country's bigger resorts.
There were a couple of breaks in the heat over the past week, with light snowfall on Friday followed by an Antarctic blast to start the week which brought a 10-degree dip in temperatures and more snowfall. Base depths have almost halved in a week, however, and the open areas – most of which are trying to hang on until October, now have only fractions of their terrain left open.
New Zealand
New Zealand has had frequently wild weather all season and this past week has been little different with torrential rain at times with mild temperatures and 100mph gales an even bigger issue.
That led to the opening of the Park & Pipe 24-25 World Cup Tour at Cardrona needing to be repeatedly delayed through the weekend.
Against all these setbacks there have also been periods of heavy snowfall and even some fresh powder days, it's just hard to know what's going to hit from one day to the next.
The big picture is that the country's main ski areas including Treble Cone, Mount Hutt, Coronet Peak and others remain 70-100% open with fairly decent depths for the final month of the season. The exception, unfortunately, is Mt Ruapehu on the North Island where Whakapapa and Turoa continue to struggle with very little open.
Argentina
It's been a good week for Argentina's ski areas with temperatures staying low and some good fresh snowfalls to start September, with accumulations of up to 50cm reported.
It's getting warmer now that meteorological springtime is here but is still dipping way below freezing overnight right down to base levels.
Catedral, near ski town Bariloche, continues to post the most terrain open anywhere in the world at present with about 100km of slopes and Corralco has the world's deepest snowpack with 3.3m lying up top.
It's looking drier and warmer for the coming weekend.
Chile
Conditions remain good on the whole in Chile with most areas seeing fresh snow this week and reporting their slopes still fully open, even with the end of their 2024 seasons only a fortnight away in some cases.
The Tre Valles area east of Portillo which links the slopes of La Parva, Valle Nevado and El Colorado reports nearly 100km (90%) of the area open and base depths just under 3 metres on upper slopes.
The base depth numbers are good at Nevados de Chillan to the south too whilst Portillo reports all slopes still open.
Europe
It's been another difficult week for the four glacier areas in the Alps that are trying to offer summer skiing.
It has been a degree or two cooler and there have even been light snow flurries reported above 3,000m, but overall temperatures are getting 5-10 degrees (Centigrade) above freezing even at that altitude, so the snow is wet and then icy where it does get back below freezing overnight.
Thursday afternoon did see more promising, widespread accumulations with Italy's Bardonecchia and Val d'Isere in France posting images of fresh snow above 3000m. However in the next valley there were flooding problems and road closures around Val Cenis.
As for the ski areas aiming to be open, Austria's Hintertux remains closed but Italy's Passo Stelvio has re-opened and Saas Fee and Zermatt have each managed to open 8-11km of slopes each, albeit with diminished snow levels.
Two more alpine glaciers, Pitztal and Solden, are due to open in three weeks and Levi and Ruka in Finland are also scheduled to open in less than a month, in their cases using snow 'farmed' (stockpiled under cover) from last season spread back out on the slopes, so more consistent lower temperatures will help them all make that happen.
North America
There's nowhere currently open in North America with the first centres expected to start their seasons from mid-October, if conditions allow.
There have now been several late summer snowfalls, between warm spells, on high slopes across the western side of the continent.
Ski areas in Alberta have now had multiple early season falls and one novelty last week was a snow shower up high in Arizona on the last day of August. This snow quickly melted again but cheered up skiers looking for signs of winter.
Overnight lows in the Rockies are now regularly getting down close to freezing and Wednesday night saw dustings of snow on high slopes in Colorado with Arapahoe Basin, Breckenridge and Keystone amongst those posting images of their mountain tops turning white.
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