Global Weekly Snow Roundup #327

The conditions on each side of the world continue to move in opposite directions, in the southern hemisphere getting better and better almost everywhere, while in the northern hemisphere the hot summer has had a dire impact almost everywhere too, with now just one lift-served outdoor ski area still currently operational (at the time of writing).

All of the five southern hemisphere ski nations have reported some fresh snowfall over the past six weeks, mostly light to moderate accumulations. In South America, where resorts are posting the world's current deepest snow cover after up to a month of snowfall, the new snow isn't quite as welcome as it usually is (and certainly was after the dry start of the season when it began to arrive in mid-July). But Tuesday saw Chile's Portillo hit four straight weeks of its access roads being closed, so some areas are wanting more dry, clear weather now, and there has been some of that.

Australian resorts, where the opposite is the case, have seen several 10-20cm accumulations, further improving conditions there. Resorts are now up to 80% open, their highest proportion of the winter, and Perisher now has the most terrain open of any ski area in the world. New Zealand ski areas have also seen some fresh snowfalls.

In the northern hemisphere, pictures continue to appear of bare glacial ice exposed on mountainsides after weeks of the freezing point being largely around altitudes of 4,000m. Ski areas that have covers on sections of their glacial snow, like Laax, are showing rectangles of covered snow on grey ice. Saas Fee announced on Friday that it would join neighbouring ski area Zermatt in temporarily suspending summer ski operations since Monday this week. That leaves just Italy’s Stelvio Pass with some lift-served summer skiing possible on its higher terrain.