J2Ski Snow Report - June 28th 2024
J2Ski Snow Report - June 28th 2024
Published : 28-Jun-2024 09:14
Portillo, Chile, will open on Saturday after more than 5 metres of snow in 14 days...
Storms in both hemispheres cause problems (rain in the northern, snow in the southern); one Chilean ski area reports 5 metre base depth, while others in South America are blocked by heavy snow.
The Snow Headlines - June 28th
- Zermatt temporarily cut off, Tignes delays summer opening due to severe storms.
- Portillo, Chile delayed opening last weekend (but will open this Saturday 29th), as access roads were blocked by snow.
- Mount Hotham, Australia sees lowest temperature in Victoria state for 8 years.
- Chile's Valle Nevado passes 5 metre mark for pre-season snowfall total.
- Canadian ski centre opens summer terrain park for six days into July.
- More huge snowfalls in Argentina lead Las Lenas to delay opening due to avalanche danger.
Snow in the J2Ski forecast for the southern hemisphere
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World Overview
There's severe weather to report in both northern and southern hemisphere ski areas this week, both leading to closed slopes, but for different reasons.
In South America still more huge snowfall, taking pre-season totals past 6 metres (20 feet) at some resorts, has led a number to delay planned openings due to blocked access roads, high avalanche danger and other related issues.
Meanwhile, in the Alps, a violent storm at the summer solstice cut off Zermatt with storm damage to its road and rail access and led Tignes to delay its planned summer season start by a week.
Elsewhere, in the southern hemisphere, Australia and New Zealand continue to suffer from too little snowfall to be able to open much, in dramatic contrast to centres across the south Pacific from them, but cold temperatures have allowed snowmakers to open some terrain. In the Northern Hemisphere, there are still a few centres open in North America and Scandinavia.
Southern Hemisphere
Australia
Australia has seen some of its lowest temperatures in more than five years over the last week. It's still not had very much snowfall but those low temperatures have allowed resorts to open a few more runs by being able to run their snowmaking system to the maximum.
Perisher has nearly a quarter of its terrain open now, both the highest proportion and the most piste kilometres in the country so far.
Other centres are open but only with about 5-10% of their terrain so far. Mount Hotham has posted the lowest temperature in the Australian Alps for eight years at -8.3°C.
It's staying cold with snow flurries but we're still waiting for signs of a 'proper big dump' arriving.
New Zealand
New Zealand is in a very similar situation to Australia with some good low temperatures but so far very little snowfall.
Mount Hutt, which is posting the deepest base in the country so far with up to 50cm lying, did post a fairly decent dump on Sunday but most of what's open so far – and it's typically only 5-10% of slopes with Cardrona the outlier claiming 25%, is thanks to snowmaking efforts.
Things do appear to be changing now, a little at least, with forecast snow set to improve things.
Coronet Peak and The Remarkables are also already open, but with very limited terrain available so far and Treble Cone and Tūroa are due to open for their 2024 seasons this weekend too.
Argentina
One of Argentina's best-known ski areas, Las Lenas, which claims the southern hemisphere's largest domain if you include the vast freeride terrain (non-lift accessed), delayed its planned opening last week after another metre of snowfall in 24 hours took its pre-season accumulation total past 6 metres and set the avalanche danger level at extremely high.
Last weekend was supposed to be the season start date for Argentinian areas that hadn't opened early though and several did manage to do so, including the continent's largest by uplift, Catedral, although it only has about 20% of its terrain open so far.
Chile
There have been still more incredible snowfalls reported in Chile with Valle Nevado posting over a metre of snowfall in 48 hours at the weekend and its snowfall total now past 5 metres for what should have been its opening weekend, although it had already opened weeks earlier because of all the snow.
The huge accumulations are causing high avalanche danger though, limiting what can open, and some resorts like Portillo (which has passed 4 metres of snowfall so far this year) were completely closed as access roads were blocked, but is planning to open for this coming weekend.
The snowfall has now eased a little in northern Chile but continues in the south.
Southern Africa
Afriski in Lesotho has its slopes fully open, helped in part by temperatures well below freezing overnight allowing for snowmaking top-ups. In the daytime highs have been around +8C. There's a mile-long main run, terrain park and nursery slopes. Sunny days and cold nights are expected to continue through next week.
Europe - The Alps
Tignes was due to open for a month of summer skiing last weekend, joining neighbour Val d'Isere and Les 2 Alpes to provide a third French option, however, it has decided to delay a week following bad weather last Friday.
Violent storms bringing torrential rain led Zermatt/Cervinia to temporarily close operations last weekend too. The famous Swiss resort was briefly cut off from rail and road access by the severe weather.
However Austrian year-round centre Hintertux - currently posting the most terrain open in the northern hemisphere at 23km (nearly 15 miles) of slopes - kept operating, as did Italy's Passo Stelvio.
There were continued snowfalls on very high slopes through the start of this week but with the snowline sometimes up at 3000-4000m, this sometimes fell as rain to quite high elevations too. However the snowline also moved to lower levels at times, with Passo Stelvio seeing fresh snowfall well below the base of the ski area on Monday.
Scandinavia
After Sweden's Riksgransen briefly reopened for Midnight Sun – Summer Solstice skiing for a few days and nights (though it was hard to tell the difference) at the end of last week, we're back to two Norwegian glacier centres open, Scandinavia's highest slopes at Galdhopiggen and the centre with the deepest reported snow (7 metres up top) in the northern hemisphere, the Fonna glacier. Both have a couple of slopes open and report excellent conditions (for late June).
North America
After the snowfall in north-western North America last week there were reports of summer ski touring adventures and half-a-foot of fresh cover at the only centre still offering lift-access snow sports on the continent, Oregon's Timberline, but we've returned to more usual summer weather now with plenty of sunshine and temperatures quickly warming through the day, meaning the best conditions are in the first hours of the morning.
There's a summer snow terrain park operating at Copper Mountain in Colorado and for this weekend through to July 3rd only, a temporary snow park at Mont Saint Sauveur in Quebec, Canada.
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