Huge start to Australia ski season as snow dumped on NSW, Victoria
Australia's snow resorts have seen a bumper start to the season as a cold front sweeps through the country's south east, sending temperatures and powder plummeting.
Blizzard conditions have hit ski fields in NSW and Victoria over the weekend, bringing the biggest start to the snow season in years.
In one clip shared by Hotham Alpine Resort in Victoria, a man can be seen wading through knee-high snow after a massive dump.
'51cm storm total,' the resort wrote on social media. 'We're not skipping leg day at Hotham!'
In NSW, Thredbo is reporting 26cm on the ground and Perisher's live snow cam shows a peak of around 35cm.
'And just like that, winter 2025 is here!' Thredbo wrote in a post.
'Snow is falling and there's over 50cm in the forecast … let's GO!'
Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist Jonathon How said overnight snowfall marks being reported included 25cm at Perisher, 32cm at Hotham, 26cm at Buller and 37cm at Falls Creek.
'So really, really big numbers,' he said.
Mr How said Perisher, Thredbo and Charlotte Pass could see another 10 to 20cm on Sunday.
'We've got a couple more centimetres to come in Victoria and pretty much anywhere above about 900m will get snow today across the alpine areas.'
He said snow was also expected to fall in new areas west of Sydney on Sunday, including parts of the Blue Mountains and Central Tablelands.
'And so we're expecting snow at Oberon. Even orange could get some flurries this afternoon and evening at some of the hills around Lithgow.
'So the snow level (will be) falling to around 800m tonight across the central tablelands.'
Colleague Dean Narramore, from the Bureau, said on Saturday that the south east could expect days of low temperatures and heavy snow dumps in Alpine areas.
'Where this cold front has come from, and where it's dragging the air from, is actually well south of Australia,' he said.
'And that's why we're going to see temperatures drop three to give degrees, and daytime highs might not even break out of the single figures in the south east of Australia as we move through Sunday and Monday.'
A low pressure system developing off the coast of Victoria would also bring windy conditions and rain, which would fall as snow in the Alpine areas, he said.
Weatherzone's Anthony Sharwood predicted on Friday that there could be as much as 70cm of snow falling at high resorts by Tuesday, and up to 30cm at lower resorts.
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