Resort And Weather News

Snowmaking at Perisher

Despite only reporting 34cm of snowfall to date, Perisher, which lies in Australia’s Snowy Mountain range, is current reporting “good skiing on well groomed pistes”, thanks to a multi-million dollar investment in automated snowmaking.

A total of 19 million dollars were spent on Perisher’s snowmaking system between 2007 and 2009, increasing the resort’s automated snow-gun inventory by 109 so that snowmaking now covers 53.4 hectares of terrain.

The resort, which made 620,000 cubic metres of snow last winter, has produced nearly 550,000 cubic metres since snowmaking operations began on 11 May with 45,445 cubic metres the largest amount produced in 24 hours to date.

The snowmaking facilities have even allowed the resort to give up some of its snow – Perisher transported 15 tonnes to Canberra’s Zoo on 18 June for the benefit of the snow leopards and donating five tonnes to Sydney on 2 July for school children to enjoy.

The New South Wales resort has further plans to increase its snowmaking coverage to 110 hectares which would allow the trails linking Perisher’s four ski areas to have snow cover from the start of the season in June to the finish in October.