J2Ski Snow Report - July 11th 2024
J2Ski Snow Report - July 11th 2024
Published : 11-Jul-2024 06:12
The skies cleared, at last, for Portillo, Chile, after loads of snow.
Snow finally stops falling in South America, with clear and sunny weather for most of the southern hemisphere ski areas.
The Snow Headlines - July 11th
- Argentina's Catedral reports 96km (60 miles) of slopes open, the most in the world at present.
- Switzerland's Saas Fee opens for summer skiing and the 24-25 season.
- Sunny weather dominates across southern hemisphere ski regions.
- France's Les 2 Alpes ends 23-24 season and Val d'Isere ends 2024 summer ski season too.
- Several New Zealand ski areas reach 100% open for the first time this season.
A little more snow in the J2Ski forecasts
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World Overview
After the big snowfalls in the Andes and Patagonia over the past few months, it's finally been a mostly dry, sunny week in South America. Resorts there have been able to open more terrain with the settled conditions and are now posting the largest open areas in the world at present - as well as the deepest fresh snowfall.
Dry and sunny for Australia and New Zealand too, but that's more the story of the season there so far and Australian areas continue to battle to open terrain with little natural snowfall as yet.
New Zealand's ski areas are in better shape with more in the 50-100% open range, compared to most with 5-40% open in Australia.
In the Northern Hemisphere, it has been dry and sunny at the one open area in North America. The total number of areas open in the Alps has now dropped to five, with two small centres still open in Norway too.
Southern Hemisphere
Australia
After the snowfall at the start of last week, sunshine has been dominating Australian weather again for much of the past fortnight. There have been some cold nights, however, allowing snowmaking to continue which in turn has allowed Aussie centres to progressively open more terrain.
That said though, we are still some way off full operations and with not much fresh snowfall in the forecast - and temperatures expected to be a little warmer next week than they were last, it's not looking like there'll be a change any time soon. Most resorts are 5-25% open only.
The largest Australian ski resort, Perisher, is posting the most open terrain in the country with all four sectors of the resort operating, albeit limited to about a third of the total runs.
Falls Creek only has a few kilometres less skiing available, representing 40% of their slopes, whilst Mount Buller has just 5% of its runs available (less than 2 miles of terrain).
New Zealand
Recent snowfall and more stable weather conditions have allowed ski areas in New Zealand to open more terrain this week.
Mount Dobson and Treble Cone are the first in the country to report being fully open for the 2024 season, with the latter also posting the country's deepest base, at nearly a metre.
Cardrona, which has two-thirds of its runs open, has the most piste km available in the country so far, 25km of runs. Mount Hutt ( 55% open ) is not far behind on 22km, the same as Treble Cone.
Conditions are still far from perfect and a number of New Zealand's smaller club fields don't yet have enough snow to open.
Unfortunately, skies have been clear and temperatures climbing this week so there's no positive change expected imminently. It's getting cooler but will stay sunny for most places into next week.
Argentina
Argentina's ski centres are in great shape with all now at least 80% open and some at 100%.
That includes the southern hemisphere's largest area, Catedral, which has hit 96km (60 miles) of open slopes, by far the most in the world at present. Snow depths are also very healthy, despite a sunny week, thanks to the big accumulations earlier in the season.
Several other ski resorts are close to the 3m (10 feet) deep mark on their higher slopes, including Chapelco and Las Leñas. The latter is famed for its deep powder freeride terrain but some years fails to get any, so 2024 is looking good there so far.
Sunny weather will continue into the weekend for most areas but it is looking more unsettled from Sunday/Monday with snowfall expected to return midweek.
Chile
It has been a predominantly dry week in Chile but all of the country's ski areas are reporting great conditions thanks to the huge snowfalls of May and June.
The 'Tres Valles' area close to Santiago, where the ski areas of Valle Nevado, La Parva and El Colorado/Farellones are 80% open (with a collective total of more than 100km of slopes) is another claimant for "most terrain currently open in the world".
Portillo and Villarrica are now fully open.
The sunny weather is expected to continue into next week, with the longer-term forecast pointing towards a return of winter towards the middle of next week with snowfall arriving from the south.
Southern Africa
Lesotho's Afriski is keeping its main slope open despite temperatures climbing towards double figures above freezing in the afternoons. Overnight lows continue to dip well below freezing allowing snowmaking systems to operate as required.
Mostly sunny as usual; although there was a period of cloud and light natural snowfall earlier in the week.
Europe
There's been more unsettled weather in the Alps this week and that's set to continue through the weekend.
Along with strong wind and potential lightning strikes, there's more rain, sleet and snow in the forecast, although with the freezing point moving between 3000m and 4500m altitudes and temperatures on glaciers hardly getting below freezing, even overnight, it's looking more like rain unfortunately.
Saas-Fee is now open for its 2024 ski season and, kind of, 24-25 season, as operations will continue through autumn into next winter. It joins neighbouring Zermatt, as a second Swiss option, also accessible from Cervinia on the Italian side.
France has dropped from three centres open to just one, Tignes, with Les 2 Alpes and Val d'Isere ending their summer ski seasons last weekend.
Hintertux in Austria and Passo Stelvio in Italy are also open, the latter seeing famous downhill racer Sofia Goggia return to ski fitness there this last week.
Up in Scandinavia, where the weather has had a similar mix, Norway's Fonna and Galdhopiggen glaciers remain open with a few miles of slopes open each.
North America
Timberline in Oregon is the only lift-served ski area currently open in the US/North America.
The Palmer Snowfield on Mount Hood there has a few miles of slopes and a terrain park open in the mornings but the snow is thawing pretty fast in the afternoons under the warm West Coast sunshine and not getting an overnight re-freeze any more. It's below 2m at the top now and dropping fast, but will hopefully make it to August as usual.
Forest fires are a problem in the region too, with Mount Baldy in California to the south currently threatened.
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