Welcome to the first editorial of the 2007 Southern Ski Season from www.snow-forecast.com. We will try and make it a regular weekly feature for the rest of our season for our active subscribers and recent participants in our free days (congratulations to Tobias in Germany who won a ski book and 12 month membership the latest draw).
The Northern Winter of 2006/2007 was one that Europe and parts of the USA would prefer to forget because it barely happened. Christmas and the New Year in the European Alps felt more like October - the lower and even middle slopes were still green and where the was snow, crowds were horrendous. Afterwards, things improved: the westerly Atlantic air managed some decent dumps especially at higher resorts, but below 2000m, the season was brief. Low altitude resorts in Scotland and along the American Eastern seaboard endured marginal conditions for yet another season and now some face an uncertain future. Even so, it wasn't all bad news by any means because the Canadian Rockies had an incredible season - often with too much snow rather than too little: Some people blamed Global Warming for the odd winter weather, others pointed to El Nino and the North Atlantic Oscillation as more likely causes. We live in interesting times…
In the Southern Hemisphere, winter 2007 has started very differently to 2006, largely because El Nino conditions have faded away and there is a fair chance that there will be a switch to La Nina conditions as the winter progresses, with only a brief spell of "normal" Pacific conditions. Based on historical measures, we would expect a better than average ski season in Australia and fairly ordinary one in New Zealand, perhaps suffering a warmer spring than usual and certainly warmer than last spring when southerlies would have allowed skiing until Christmas were it not for all the construction work at Ruhapehu.
So far, things are going to plan for winter 2007, although the side effects of changing weather patterns have brought mixed fortunes. On the one hand the long drought of SE Australia has broken at last, but on the other, both Australia and New Zealand have seen some pretty wild and destructive weather with widespread floods and in Taranaki, North Island, even a swarm of destructive tornados last night as a depression crossed NZ from the Tasman Sea.
On the hills, things are looking really good in the Australian resorts with a decent base after recent dumps and a settled week in prospect with just a few showers to keep it fresh on the pistes. Conditions are improving quickly in the South Island resorts of New Zealand and it is snowing right now at many resorts from Canterbury north to Ruhapehu - all the way to East Cape in fact, as a bitterly cold SE airstreams dumps the second significant fall of the season.
This should take snow depths close to 1m at most resorts, about average for the date, and meanwhile cause problems on higher roads over the next few days, with snow to near sea level in places like Akaroa and Kaikoura. Carry chains and expect delays for road clearing this weekend, and if you do plan to ski in central NZ and are not too obsessed with making the first tracks, bear in mind there should be better weather conditions through next week. Further south around the Southern Lakes, the snow has already fallen and there is a superb clear and cold weekend in prospect.
Resorts in South America and those in the high glacier resorts of Europe have a cloudy and snowy prospect yet again and an odd combination of a mild winter followed by a cold and wet summer means that conditions in the European glaciers are probably better now than they were in January. Go figure.
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Best wishes,
The Snow-Forecast.com Team
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