Funny! There used to be a lot of discussion along the same lines in the U.S. southeast. Those are the states south of Washington DC, mostly western VA and NC plus WV. But once live webcams were installed, that changed the situation a bit. Still have the issue that people think there isn't enough snow on the slopes when it's warm in the foothills less than an hour away. Travelers who stay the weekend are usually driving 2+ hours. People from Atlanta drive north 5+ hours for skiing/boarding. The ski resorts are pretty small. Under 125 acres except for Snowshoe. Buller and Hotham have just under 800 acres. Thredbo and Perisher are much larger to any resorts in the southeast or Mid-Atlantic (PA, southern NY).I know what you mean about the marketing, they’re always spinning to make it sound better than it is to get more visitors. I think it’s probably because we have such a short season and if they were honest they wouldn’t have visitors half the time. The other thing I think is that the vast majority of people book well ahead to go skiing in Australia, so don’t want to hear how bad it is when they’ve already booked and paid. For those not familiar, some quotes from Hotham’s recent snow reports include ‘improving precipitation’ (it’s raining) and ‘The snow is a little firmer than the last few days due to the warming yesterday and the cooling overnight but it still has enough texture on the surface for some great carving on the groomers’ (it’s icy) or Buller saying ‘A cover of snow which will test your skills’ (it’s patchy cover).
The big worry is that there will be too much snow by the weekend when people are planning to drive.
The goods have arrived indeed! We got +-30cms/1ft in the last 24hrs and there's about the same amount in the forecast for the next 24hrs. Went out for a ski this morning, it was nice there's some sweet tree runs that don't get tracked out as fast as the rest of the mountain. Hoping to get another hour or so of skiing in after work...There is a big storm in process at essentially all the Australian ski resorts. Range in the first day or so is 5-35 cm, meaning 2-13 inches. One report of 1.5 in per hour (4cm/hr) snowfall in the Observations thread for Aug. 6-11 on the Aussie ski forum.
The big worry is that there will be too much snow by the weekend when people are planning to drive. The last big storm resulted in closed roads for a day or two. Like the northeast, mid-Atlantic, and southeast in the U.S., very few people are flying to ski. While some people take a 1-week ski vacation during school breaks, most people ski on the weekend or perhaps a long weekend.
Haha, we get that a lot back home too! Massive dumps and then they close (almost) everything because of avalanche risk. Fair enough though... There was a (small?) inbounds avalanche here this morning so better safe than sorry.Exactly my concerns across the ditch in New Zealand coming into this weekend. Looks like we're expecting between 50-100cm of snow but depending on when it hits, it could easily make the mountain inaccessible for the weekend...! The last couple of times we had massive snow dumps we also had a day or so of closure while they did avalanche work, including the access road being closed to both visitors and staff.
Of course, there's a reason the resort's nickname is Mt Shut
Wow! Apparently multiple waves of snow over 4 days in the past week. People are talking about skiing light powder that's thigh deep, which I gather is very unusual for Australia.
Snow pics start with this post.
https://www.ski.com.au/xf/threads/august-6-12th.85434/page-18#post-4000262
A complete mess for parking related to Perisher and Thredbo. Jindabyne is a town well away from the actual ski resorts.
My impression is that it was the dryness of the snow that was a bit unusual, more so than the amount of snow coming down in just a few days. In the U.S. northeast, getting "fluffy" powder snowstorm that is more than a foot is unusual as well. Even more unusual for the southeast (south of Washington DC) to get even 4+ inches of powder snow. But has happened a few times in the last decade. Lots of closed roads during those storms. Even closed ski resorts when staff can't get to work if a state's governor tells everyone to stay off the roads.Yep, this weekend was pretty good I spent the weekend at Falls, given the road to Hotham was closed most of the weekend. Over 4 days Falls saw 102cm of snow. It’s not entirely unusual for Australia, but only happens once or twice a season.
I don’t know about other areas, while it was fairly light and dry, not more than usual for a storm like this. Certainly have experienced better both in Australia and Northern hemisphere.My impression is that it was the dryness of the snow that was a bit unusual, more so than the amount of snow coming down in just a few days. In the U.S. northeast, getting "fluffy" powder snowstorm that is more than a foot is unusual as well. Even more unusual for the southeast (south of Washington DC) to get even 4+ inches of powder snow. But has happened a few times in the last decade. Lots of closed roads during those storms. Even closed ski resorts when staff can't get to work if a state's governor tells everyone to stay off the roads.