Major Snowstorm Hits Australian Slopes
Major Snowstorm Hits Australian Slopes
Published : 29-Jun-2024 06:19
A multi-day snowstorm has begun for Australian ski areas which they're hoping will have deposited at least 20cm of fresh cover by Sunday evening.
The country's centres have had a challenging start to the 2024 season, which began three weeks ago, with cold temperatures for snowmaking but very little natural snowfall.
As a result very little terrain has opened so far with key July school holiday weeks now here.
"We're in blizzard mode at the moment and we couldn't be more excited," said Alex Pankiw, Marketing Coordinator at Hotham, noting that they've cut accommodation prices by 20% across the board over the coming weeks, "What a way to kick off school holidays here at Hotham and we've got plenty of fresh snow coming down right now, it's been heavy through the day and this will continue through the evening – at least 20cm fresh snow is expected by tomorrow."
All Australian centres are currently open but most only have 5-10% of their slopes open so far, representing 2-4km of slopes available so far each and reporting machine made snow cover of 5-30cm.
The country's largest resort, Perisher, is out in front with 12km of slopes open, about a fifth of its full area, Falls Creek in second for open terrain with 7km, about 15% of theirs.
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