Two very different photographs taken at Mount Kosciuszko just two years apart highlight a “clear trend” happening at Australia’s popular ski resort.
A photo posted online by Weatherzone journalist and lifelong skier Anthony Sherwood shows a person on skis standing on top of a pile of fluffy snow in Kosciuszko National Park. Another photo, taken by a Perisher snow camera on the same range on Monday, shows a very different scene.
“Mount Kosciuszko is still holding onto last week’s light snow in the smallest form in the world,” Sherwood said on social media.
Despite the first snow of the year falling on the slopes in early April, resorts reported a tough start to the 2024 snow season last weekend. In New South Wales, only one of the 75 chairlifts will be operating at opening night. Last year’s season was a disappointment, with warmer than average temperatures and less snowfall than average creating less than ideal conditions in the alps.
1. On this day two years ago
2. Today, Mount Kosciuszko is still covered in last week’s light snow, the smallest remaining snow in the world. pic.twitter.com/Wic3d9GSxh
— Anthony Sherwood ❄️ (@antsharwood) June 10, 2024
Mount Kosciuszko photo “suggests a slow start to ski season”
Sherwood told Yahoo News on Tuesday that he had simply posted the photo “to illustrate the slow start to the season,” but that it was “not indicative of how good or bad the snow will likely be for the rest of the season.”
The author said the early season slump in tourism could be attributed to the King’s Birthday long weekend being celebrated earlier this year and “just natural fluctuations”.
“Some years it starts slow and ends big, and some years we get a ton of snow in June,” he continued, citing the 2010 and 2020 seasons as examples of how both seasons started off with similarly light snowfall but ultimately accumulated more than 160 centimetres by September.
Nevertheless, “there is a clear trend in Australia towards shorter seasons and less snow overall due to human-induced climate change,” he lamented.
The 2010 and 2020 ski seasons started off similarly light but ultimately accumulated more than 160cm of snow by September, although the 2020 season ended much earlier. Source: Snowy Hydro
Australia’s ski industry in ‘perilous situation’, experts warn
Graphs released by Snowy Hydro show snow in the Perisher Valley last year started just a few days later than the 2022 snow season, but the 2023 snow season came to an abrupt halt on October 10, a month earlier than the previous year.
Last week, researchers released a report arguing that climate change has put the nation’s $3.3 billion ski industry “at risk.”
A new model predicts that by 2050, rising temperatures and reduced snowfall will reduce the annual snow season by an average of 55 days.
The Changing Snowscape report warns that Australia’s lucrative ski and snowboard season could disappear in just two generations, and no matter what we do, the average length of a resort season will be reduced by 16 to 18 days by the 2030s.
A spokesman for Perisher Resort said “fantastic snow” had fallen at Hotham and Falls Creek on Tuesday morning. Source: Supplied/Perisher
Perisher’s manager says the start of ski season is “not unusual”
“Limited snowfall over the King’s Birthday long weekend is not unusual and does not bode well for the season ahead,” Nathan Butterworth, vice president and general manager of Perisher Ski Resort, told Yahoo.
“This is the perfect start to the season,” he added. “We usually start our snowmaking in May each year, but we’re pleased to see both snowmaking conditions and natural snowfall in the forecast this week.”
“We’re looking forward to this season and can’t wait to let you know when more runs and lifts will be open.”
A Perisher spokesman said “tremendous snow” had fallen in Hotham and Falls Creek on Tuesday morning.
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