‘Frustrating start’ to ski season as climate change and El Nino weather pattern converge

A striking absence of snow has left Australia’s slopes muddy and bare and the ski industry pinning hopes of a salvageable season on a late downfall to cover the alps.

Skiing businesses rely on the winter school holidays to bring hordes of families to the Australian alps to kick off the ski season.

But as students begin their holidays in Victoria and start marking off the last days before winter holidays begin in NSW this weekend, a glum would-be skier posted a clip of himself standing beneath chair lifts on a slope of dull muddy grass marked by a strip of manufactured snow.

A commenter on the post dispatched from the Perisher ski resort in NSW urged him to make the most of “the white ribbon of death”.

There are similar scenes in Victoria, where human-made snow is among the only white stuff to be found in the state’s alpine resorts.

Snow coverage in Australia is in long-term decline due to increasing temperatures caused by climate change, data from the Bureau of Meteorology shows. This year’s season is also expected to be hit by the onset of an El Nino weather pattern, declared by the Bureau of Meteorology on June 16, which causes warmer and drier conditions.

Resort operators in NSW and Victoria insist the muddy start to the season was not unusual and does not suggest coverage will remain low.

“June has traditionally delivered mixed results,” said Bess Nolan-Cook, chief executive of Victorian industry group Tourism North East. “We’re certainly anticipating snow for the rest of the season.”

In a statement posted online, Buller Ski Lifts general manager Noel Landry said data going back to the 1970s showed low or no snow was normal for June. He said about 35 per cent of seasons started with limited cover until July.

Dani Wright, a spokeswoman for Vail Resorts, which operates Perisher, said staff were using every opportunity to make snow and open more runs as soon as possible.

“There is snow in the forecast, so we’re hopeful to get the season back on track,” she said.

“We need around minus 2 degrees Celsius wet bulb to produce snow with our automated guns, which continually adjust their settings to achieve maximum production as the temperature gets colder during the night. When conditions allow, Perisher can have over 200 snow guns running to cover the slopes.”

Forecasts for coming days across the alps are for negative overnight temperatures and positive temperatures during the day.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, permanent snow cover historically begins to build in mid-June in south-east NSW and north-east Victoria to an altitude of about 1500 metres above sea level.

Since the late 1950s, snow cover has declined due to warming temperatures and a drop in cool season rains between May and October, says a BOM report on the snow season published this week.

Peak snow depths have been decreasing by 0.7 centimetres per year and 0.6 centimetres per year respectively at Spencers Creek in NSW and Rocky Valley Dam in Victoria.

The environment group Protect Our Winters Australia lays the blame for shrinking snow coverage directly at the feet of the fossil fuel industry.

“El Nino is a natural cycle, but it is now performing on a climate stage made dangerously hot by coal, oil and gas projects,” said Dr Lily O’Neill, a senior research fellow at Melbourne Climate Futures who serves on the group’s board.

“We can’t let debates over weather cycles mask the fact that this is one of the warmest starts to winter on record, and that the long-term decline of our alpine snowpack is a direct consequence of fossil fuel burning.”

According to O’Neill, historical data from Spencer’s Creek in the Snowy Mountains, the benchmark measure of Australian alpine snowpack, shows that El Nino years are associated with snow depths averaging around 35 centimetres below the all-years mean, with the snow season shortened by about two weeks.

When El Nino coincides with a positive Indian Ocean Dipole, which BOM models suggest is likely this winter-spring, conditions shift toward the leanest seasons on record.

At Mount Buller, George’s Ski Hire owner Rob Aivatoglou said there had been 25 centimetres of snow on the King’s Birthday long weekend this month, but it had not lasted.

“Throughout Australia and globally it’s been a warm patch,” he said. “It’s been a frustrating start, that’s for sure.”

However, Aivatoglou said he had experienced previous seasons that were worse. Mount Buller has a series of snowmaking factories that allow for some ski tourism and tobogganing in the absence of natural snow.

He said there were still visitors at Mount Buller who were enjoying the alpine environment.

“People are being entertained and having a good time. But right now, for the experienced skier and snowboarder, the conditions are lacking.

Jiwon Park, a meteorologist with the BOM, said rain was expected to fall across the alpine regions on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the potential for cold fronts to bring snow on Thursday.

But that snow will be falling on wet ground, which will restrict accumulation.

“We’ve got to stay patient. Snow will come,” Aivatoglou said. “I just don’t know when.”

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