J2Ski Snow Report - August 1st 2024
J2Ski Snow Report - August 1st 2024
Published : 01-Aug-2024 06:58
Perisher, Australia, taunting us on Monday this week...
Fresh snow for many southern hemisphere ski areas, with much more snow forecast for South America in the coming week.
The Snow Headlines - August 1st
- Snowfall returns to South America after a mostly dry July.
- New Zealand ski areas see up to 60cm of fresh snowfall this week.
- Norway's glacier summer ski areas both suspend public skiing, remain open to race teams.
- Two months to start of 24-25 winter season in Finland.
- America's Timberline, the only centre still open in North America, names 18th August closing day.
A lot of snow forecast for Argentina and Chile!
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World Overview
Snowy conditions have returned to most ski centres in the southern hemisphere after a rather dry week or two for most.
Australia saw weekend snowfall, then New Zealand's slopes were dumped on at the start of this week with one of their biggest snowfalls of the year to date.
Snow has also returned to the Andes and Patagonia this week after a predominantly dry July.
There's somewhat warmer weather in the northern hemisphere and we've dropped from 7 to 5 centres left open this week with Scandinavia's two remaining glacier areas – Fonna and Gladhopiggen – both announcing they were ending public skiing and snowboarding in the last four days. Both are still open to teams for private training though and whilst that appears to be it for Fonna in 2024, Galdhopiggen says it will re-open to all in October when it expects conditions to improve.
Southern Hemisphere
Australia
There was more fresh snowfall in Australia over the weekend, a fortnight after the big falls that transformed the season for the better (after a dry first six weeks to the season).
There was about 20cm (8 inches) of fresh that further improved conditions overall allowing more terrain and lifts to open as well as providing some powder ski days at the start of this week.
Since then it has been mostly dry and sunny and that's the forecast for the next few days too.
Falls Creek is reporting some of the best conditions, it's upper slope base now more than 90cm (3 feet) deep and more than 90% of its terrain open. Larger area, Perisher, has a similar amount of terrain open – around 45km of slopes – although that represents 70% of its terrain.
New Zealand
New Zealand saw 2-3 days of snowfall to start this week, with some centres seeing over 60cm of fresh accumulations in total in what was the biggest snowfall of the winter so far.
Treble Cone was one of those seeing the biggest falls and was the first in the country to post that it had reached a one metre base on its upper slopes on Tuesday.
Mount Hutt and Mount Dobson have also passed the metre mark now.
As skies have cleared, more centres have re-opened and more are now 100% open, or nearly so, than there have been all season to date.
With blue skies and fresh pow, conditions are currently superb.
It now looks like it should be increasingly sunny through the weekend but cold with lows of -10C, daytime highs around +3C in the mountains.
Argentina
A multi-day snowstorm is currently underway in Argentina which could dump over a metre of snow over three-four days on some of the country's slopes by the weekend.
It's the biggest snowfall for over a month since the big dumps of May and June led to the most snow in Argentinian slopes to start the season in 30 years.
The snowfall is closing terrain at present for safety and logistic reasons.
Even before the snow arrived Catedral, South America's largest area, had about 100km of slopes open, the most of a single ski area on earth at present.
Chapelco and Las Leñas are the only two centres worldwide reporting bases over 3 metres.
Chile
Chilean ski slopes have been in great shape all season after the huge autumn snowfalls and its resorts have a higher percentage of their slopes open than any other country.
They include 100% open Portillo and the three resorts that make up the Tre Valles region east of Santiago, cumulatively offering the largest area open anywhere in the world with about 95% open and offering 115km of slopes between them (La Parva, El Colorado and Valle Nevado).
After a sunny weekend and start to the week temperatures have dropped down towards -10C overnight, clouds have rolled in and snowfall is forecast over the next few days, if not so much as for Argentina. Heaviest will most likely be at more southerly centres like Nevados de Chillan.
Southern Africa
No real change in southern Africa this week with predominantly clear skies and lots of sunshine. Lesotho's Afriski continues to have its main run fully open, about a mile of machine-made snow.
Overnight lows have been down below -5C and daytime highs not much above _+5C so not much thawing. August is the last month of the season here.
Europe
With Tignes closed in France at the end of last week we're down to four centres open in the Alps and, in terms of slopes open to the public, in the whole of Europe now.
But it has been warm, with the freezing point moving above 4,000m and the highest glacier lifts even overnight, and daytime highs on glaciers going up towards double positive figures Celcius - seeing snowpacks on the glacial ice melting away pretty fast.
So far those that want to be open remain so but open terrain has dropped at each of them and so have snow depth stats.
Neighbours Saas Fee and Zermatt (also accessible from Cervinia) are posting around 10-12km of slopes open each and Saas Fee still reports the snow lying 3m/10 feet deep up top.
Hintertux has dropped 20% of its open terrain compared to a week ago but is posting the most of the five centres open in the Northern hemisphere with 16km (10 miles) of slopes.
Italy's Passo Stelvio is also open with about 4km of slopes to enjoy.
Daytime temperatures have been reaching +8C on glaciers and will continue to do so, so the thaw will carry on too.
In Scandinavia both of the remaining glacier areas that had been open to the public, Fonna and Galdhopiggen, have suspended operations for the public.
Fonna did so a day earlier than previously announced, last Saturday, Galdhopiggen from Thursday, August 1st. The latter plans to reopen to the public in October when it expects to have fresh autumn snowfall but for Fonna that appears to be it for 2024.
In the meantime, Sunday marks only two months until the 24-25 season is due to start at Levi and Ruka in Finland.
Conditions have not been great on Scandinavia's glaciers this week with temperatures reaching +10C in the afternoons and rain showers reported. Next week looks much the same.
North America
Another largely sunny week in western North America with forest fires around ski areas more of a concern than snow levels.
Canada's Kicking Horse was evacuated at the end of last week due to forest fire proximity whilst the ski town of Jasper to the north has had many properties destroyed by another inferno there.
One ski centre, Oregon's Timberline on Mt Hood is still open though with a terrain park and a couple of miles of slopes up on the Palmer snowfield still open. They have now named a probable season end date of August 22nd, so there's three weeks left until the end of a nine-month 23-24 season.
It's the only centre still open since last year that isn't a year-round resort.
Temperatures have been up in the 60s and low 70s Fahrenheit in the daytime and the snowpack is thawing but should survive to the 22nd.
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