Global Weekly Snow Roundup #318

World Overview

The southern hemisphere's season got started properly last weekend with most of Australia's ski resorts opening for their 2026 seasons. There had not been any huge pre-season snowfalls, and snowmaking windows had been limited up to the final week before opening, so most only had a short run or two initially, but that was still good news for opening day, and there have been good snowmaking conditions since. The season is expected to kick off this coming weekend in the Andes, New Zealand and southern Africa's Lesotho, although again early conditions are looking marginal in most cases. 

Some areas in New Zealand have begun postponing their planned season starts but it's looking promising for snowfall over the next few days in the Andes, In fact, some parts of the northern hemisphere have posted more snowfall above 2,000m/7,000 feet this past week than some areas in the southern hemisphere. The end of last week saw up to 20cm (8") of accumulation just in time for Val d’Isere's opening for its summer ski season glacier snow sports. It's re-opening takes the total number of lift-served areas currently open in the Alps and Scandinavia to 8. The numbers have stayed at three in North America, with Timberline and Beartooth Basin remaining open in Oregon and Wyoming, but Mammoth Mountain, the last area open in California, finally confirmed its season end last Sunday. However, Colorado's Copper Mountain has opened its hike-to summer-snow terrain park to keep the number of areas open steady. North of the border, the snow has kept falling at Banff's Sunshine ski area, which opens for summer skiing at the end of next week.

In Japan, the Gassan Glacier (5/10cm / 2/4") is reported to still be open (it usually aims to operate into July), despite its base, which was measured at 8 metres (26 feet) when it started its season two months ago, having shrunk away to very little. There is, though, apparently a thin covering at altitude where you can make a few runs. It's not thawing as fast as lower elevations.  Temperatures have stayed close to freezing on upper terrain (but reached +15C at the base) with a mixture of sunshine and (rain) showers.