After days of hullabaloo about pending rain carnage, you will be pleasantly surprised that rain damage was minimal at the major resorts. NSW in particular received little damage even at lower elevations with my son reporting nice snow early yesterday to the bottom of The Ridge at Perisher. Did turn wet yesterday and snow is definitely wet this morning, but the cams do not lie. Barely any damage even to the very lowest slopes of Thredbo, as evidenced by the Central Spur cam. We can all laugh at Monkey's pic of the Frying Pan Inn getting washed away and Team Hotham in action on the lake, but the truth is thousands of words were spent moaning about a rain event that caused precious little carnage. Of course, that won't please everyone will it. Happy Sunday.
Yep, heading down today for the week, I'm stoked to be heading down for some snow, and even more stoked that Monkey was way off Good to see the snow sticking around
Yep heading down as well today getting there ay 6.30 and snowboarding from mon to wed should be awesome and glad to hear that there has been no losses!
And to clarify this, here are some shots of Snake Gully, at Mt Hotham. When there is rain damage, it is VERY obvious in this area. 8:55am yesterday (15 July) 12:55pm yesterday (15 July) 7:10am This morning (16 July) FOr those familiar with this area, after heavy rain, there can be HUGE losses up the gully on the right. There has been SOME loss to the partially covered area in Snake Gully, but it is minimal.
There's still another two days of above freezing temps to come. If you see drainage groves in the off piste snow you'll know we're losing plenty.
It probably helps in that the rainfall totals were in the range of 10-20mm. It certainly could have been a lot worse. We may be able to pick-up a little snow on the back-end of this system to make it reasonably neutral event.
Guys bear in mind that we are experiencing very cold temperatures for a rain events....I remember when I was living in ski resorts in Europe having that kind of events with 10-15 c. Then, you can start to speak about serious damage. At the end of this event, the snow will be very wet which is good because when the cold air arrives it will consolidate the base.
Smiggins got a bit of damage. Nothing that cant be fixed with some sub zero temps and there wasnt a hell of a lot to loose really anyway so no real dramas there. Thredbo and Perisher look wet but no loss. 5cm-10cm gain from reports up on the mountain Selwyn well- Poor old Selwyn. The guy on Snow FM can talk it up as much as he wants but its a disaster area
as most trails open are pretty much covered in just man made snow the rain damage is actually quite minimal. Man made snow is amazingly more resistant to rain damage than natural snow...... it is hard to loose real snow when you don't really have any to start with !!!
Surprised that Snake Gully still looks "good" haven't lost that much. As the temps drop over the next few days it will be frozen again and we just have to wait for some snow to fall
i'm no expert but it has to do with the crystal structure. Not only is it more resistant to rain it is also more resistant to traffic as well.
TLB What do you base that conclusion on? Have you been to all the resorts personally? Doonks' report from Hotham is not encouraging, and I dare say it would be the same at all Vic resorts ... it rained basically all day yesterday, and part of today
TLB is right, apart from the summit the cover on all of Hothams open runs is complete, all due to significant man made snow quantities. Doonks said the quality of snow has decreased, he's right its like skiing on snot compared to earlier on in the week when it was dry. The cover however (apart from summit and drift) is fine ......
Yes but chuck, how much natural snow is left? AFAIC rain damage is just that ... I wouldn't be skiing it! you could have 2m of manmade snow, and it might still be there after a pile of rain, but who cares It is still damaged! I must admit, I am suprised the Drift is still running ... Is it? If it is, I believe that is the only lift running on purely natural snow in Victoria ...
So far, this season's a DIVE. If it keeps goin, it'll be the first of 6 seasons, I'll have gone without. If I was a beginner, it would be a different story.
