Even More Australian Ski Resorts Throw in Towel Early Amid Tough Winter
At ski resorts across Australia, the season continues to end early after a winter with little snow and temperatures that were too warm too often.
Two more mountains, Falls Creek and Mount Buller, recently announced that they, too, were throwing in the towel.
“While we wish we could keep it going longer, this will be our final week of lift operations for the season, due to weather and current snow conditions,” wrote Falls Creek in a social media post, adding that closing day will be Sunday, September 6.
Last winter, which was more agreeable for skiers, Falls Creek closed in early October.
Mt. Buller also plans to close on Sunday. It kept its lifts spinning until October 5 last year.
“As we say at Mt Buller – That’s Amore!” the resort wrote in a social media post.
The closures at Mt. Buller, Falls Creek, and others come amid what one local Australian news outlet called a “shocker” snow season.
The ski states of Victoria and New South Wales saw their hottest winters on record this year, the Guardian reported, with the rest of the country’s states and territories landing in the top ten on record since 1910 (Tasmania also saw a warm temperature record, according to the bureau).
Dr. Simon Grainger, a senior climatologist at Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, told the news outlet that, along with local systems, the ongoing El Niño set up weather patterns that were favorable towards hotter-than-usual daytime temperatures across southeast Australia.
He also noted that the challenging winter took place against the backdrop of a globally warmer climate.
Falls Creek Resort
In 2024, modeling done by Protect Our Winters Australia (POW) and The Australian National University (ANU) found that under a mid-emissions scenario, the Australian ski season will be 44 days shorter on average by 2050. A high-emissions scenario, per the study, would cut the average season by 55 days.
ABC News reported that Snow Resorts Australia CEO Josh Elliott struck a more positive note, though, highlighting investments in snowmaking at ski areas.
“While conditions and available terrain have differed between resorts, continued investment in snowmaking and snow management has meant that skiing, snowboarding and snowplay have been available in NSW, Victoria and the ACT since the June long weekend,” he said, per the outlet.
He pointed, too, to the use of all-weather snowmaking technology, which can pump out flakes even when temperatures are well above freezing.
Related: Summer Snow Falls on Mountain Bikers at Mt. Bachelor, Oregon
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