New Zealand Forecast Promises Up to 30cm Snow Ahead of Weekend

• Mt. Ruapehu Opens Saturday with Snow Play Thanks to All-Weather Snowmaking
• Warm Temperatures Melt Mt. Hutt’s Early Snow, Delay Historic Season Start
• Chile Scores 47cm Dump—Portillo Leads Andes into Snow Season
• Aussie Resorts Prepare for King’s Birthday with Fresh Flurries and Snowmaking

SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE INTRO

Things are getting serious now with the first Southern Hemisphere ski centre set to open this Saturday, 31st May, for the 2025 season—kind of. That’s because New Zealand’s Whakapapa ski area on Mt. Ruapehu on the North Island plans to open for ‘snow play’ thanks to its all-weather snowmaking systems. A plan for Mt. Hutt to open a fortnight early and post its earliest opening in over a decade, after it received over 1.2 metres (4 feet) of early May snowfall, has been cancelled unfortunately—or at least postponed a week—due to warm weather melting a lot of that early snow.
Elsewhere, we are 2–5 weeks away still from opening day for most areas in Australia, New Zealand, and the South American Andes. The latter reported more snowfall over the past week, but not enough for any resorts to announce as yet that they plan to open early. In Southern Africa, Lesotho’s Afriski says that their season will begin in June but has not yet published a date. It’s usually the second week of the month.

AUSTRALIA REPORT

Australia’s 2025 ski season start is a little over a week away, with most of the country's resorts planning to open for the King’s Birthday long weekend on 7th June. The past week has continued to see overnight lows cold enough for snowmaking and the odd light snow flurry, but daytime highs have also been getting quite a few degrees above freezing, and there’s not yet much sign of significant bases being built.
Monday saw the first snowfalls this week, with 2–5 cm (1–2”) reported.
“Temps dropped as low as -2°C overnight, the guns were firing and we had fresh snow, as well,” says Alex Pankiw, Field Marketing Coordinator for Hotham. “It’s really encouraging to wake up to snowfall two weeks in a row – we can’t wait for winter. Hopefully, it’s a sign of good things to come for Hotham.”
At Mt. Buller, they insist they're ready to go on the 7th, in part thanks to their all-weather snowmaking systems which have so far stockpiled 10,000 cubic metres of snow on their Bourke St main run. Perisher reported a further 8 cm (3”) on Wednesday morning. Tasmania’s Ben Lomond also reported its first snow covering of the autumn.

AUSTRALIA FORECAST

It’s a largely sunny forecast for the coming week, with temperatures getting down below freezing at all levels overnight but climbing up to +5 to +10°C in the daytime.

NEW ZEALAND REPORT

As mentioned in our introduction, Mt. Hutt had been expected to open this coming Saturday to kick off the country’s and the Southern Hemisphere’s 2025 season, but unfortunately the resort announced Monday that a lot of the snowfall they’d received at the start of May has now melted. They said,

“Unfortunately, the last few weeks of weather have been very unkind to us and we won't be able to open for King’s Birthday weekend as we had all hoped. We are still holding out for an earlier opening on the weekend of 7th and 8th June but if the snow conditions/weather are still not up to par, we will revert to our original opening date of 13th June. We will provide further updates as conditions change – but in the meantime, thanks for your understanding!”

Cardrona, Coronet Peak, and The Remarkables also plan to open from the 13th/14th June. Indeed, although overnight lows have been down to -5°C and fresh snowfall has been reported on high slopes, daytime highs up to +10°C at base levels and +5°C up high have led to significant thawing at most levels.

NEW ZEALAND FORECAST

The forecast is looking more promising for the final days of May, with temperatures expected to be in the -10 to +5°C range and moderate-to-heavy snowfall totals of up to 30 cm (12") by Saturday expected.

ARGENTINA REPORT

There’s probably still more than a fortnight until the expected start of Argentina’s 2025 ski season, with no sign as yet of any centres deciding to open early for the season—unlike 2024, after the huge May snowfalls then. The start of this week did see more snowfall and temperatures dipping as low as -8°C overnight, but the accumulations were measured in fairly modest numbers of centimetres—not by the metre as they were in May last year. One of the largest reported—23 cm (9”) in 24 hours on Tuesday—was at the former ski area of Vallecitos. South America's largest area, Catedral, is expected to open first in mid-June, the rest in the latter half of next month.

ARGENTINA FORECAST

A largely sunny end to the week with little precipitation to be seen in the forecast. The freezing point will be between 2,000 and 300 m, with temperatures varying from -5 to +10°C.

CHILE REPORT

There have been more promising pre-season snowfalls in Chile, with Portillo posting fresh snowfall images on Monday with a 47 cm (19") accumulation. Nowhere has announced an early opening so far, and currently it looks like the weekend after next will see the first Chilean resorts open for their 2025 season, with La Parva, Antillanca, El Colorado/Farellones, and Corralco among those in pole position to be first. Valle Nevado is targeting the weekend after, Portillo from June 21st.

CHILE FORECAST

After the recent snowfall, it’s a largely dry and sunny forecast for the coming week, with just early signs of a front bringing more snowfall toward the start of next week. Temperatures largely in the -8 to +6°C range.

LESOTHO REPORT

Afriski’s ski season officially begins on 1st June, this Sunday, but the season start in terms of skiable snow is usually a week or two into the month unless early season conditions are good. That usually means good low overnight temperatures for snowmaking and not-too-thawing warmth in the afternoons. Although the resort does see good snowfalls now and then, there’s rarely enough of the natural stuff lasting long enough to operate with. The past week has seen some overnight lows that look snowmaking-level, but it has been quite warm in the daytime. The centre has not posted current images, no longer publishes a snow report, and webcams are offline. The region’s other centre, Tiffindell in South Africa, has not operated since 2019 and is officially up for sale.

LESOTHO FORECAST

It’s not looking ideal for the season start, with daytime highs around +10°C in the afternoons and non-stop daily sunshine forecast. But it appears there should potentially be some overnight snowmaking win.