Final Weekend of Southern Hemisphere’s 2023 Season
Final Weekend of Southern Hemisphere’s 2023 Season
Published : 20-Oct-2023 07:41
The last three ski areas still open for the 2023 ski season in the southern hemisphere are coming up to their final weekend.
New Zealand's Turoa and Whakapapa ski areas on Mt Ruapehu on the north Island had always aimed to stay open to this weekend but Argentina's Catedral near the ski town of Bariloche (pictured above) has kept extending its season, despite temperatures reaching +15C on higher slopes in recent days.
It is down to just 3km of slopes open though, less than 3% of its total area which is the southern hemisphere's largest.
By contrast the 16km of slopes currently open at Whakapapa is the most terrain reported open by any of the 15 centres currently open worldwide.
All ski areas in Australia closed earlier than hoped in late September after warm weather there for much of the latter half of the winter. There have since been several post season end snowfalls.
Southern Africa's two ski areas did not really open for skiing this winter. Tiffindell in south Africa last operated in 2019, Afriski in Lesotho only made a small amount of snow and didn't run its main lift, although it did offer some freestyle snowboarding.
In the northern hemisphere the first Japanese ski area has opened for its 23-24 winter this weekend and the first North American area looks imminent. Europe now has 9 glacier areas open in Austria, Italy and Switzerland and a further three centres are open in Scandinavia.
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