20 May 2021: Heading to the snow this winter? NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is making the snow season easier for visitors with new digital annual pass entry to Kosciuszko National Park.

For the first time, when visitors buy a new digital annual pass from the NPWS website before leaving home, it will be automatically linked to their vehicle registration and ready to use straight away.

This means no more queuing to get a paper annual pass – snow seekers can bypass the vehicle entry stations and get up to the mountains quicker.

Visitors can no longer buy annual passes from entry stations and will instead need to pre-purchase their new digital annual pass online from nswparkspass.info/buy. For concessions and discounts, apply at least 3 days before travel to allow for approval and processing.

Day passes are still available to buy at entry stations and from NPWS visitor centres in Jindabyne, Khancoban and Tumut.

In more good news for ski trippers, many COVID-related restrictions have eased since last year’s snow season.

The only entry requirement for Kosciuszko National Park for the 2021 snow season is a valid NSW Parks Pass.

Snow play activities such as tobogganing, sledding and snow-tubing are back on and visitors are also welcome for general sightseeing, stays and off-snow activities like hiking.

A number of campgrounds are open for winter, with all campers required to book before arriving via the NPWS website.  Backcountry camping (when hiking or skiing in remote areas) is allowed without a booking, but campers must fill out an online Trip Intention Form to register with NPWS.

Adventurers planning activities such as cross-country skiing, snow shoeing and backcountry skiing and snowboarding must also complete a Trip Intention Form and ensure they have suitable skills and equipment.

Travellers to the Snowy Mountains should plan ahead and check with individual ski resorts and other venues about their COVID-19 restrictions, venue capacity and booking requirements.

To keep everyone safe this snow season, NPWS reminds visitors that they must follow all Public Health orders, including leaving an area if physical distancing is not possible. Some restrictions may remain in place, particularly for indoor venues.

NPWS may need to make changes or bring in restrictions if the COVID-19 situation or Public Health Orders change in the lead-up to, or during the 2021 snow season. Always check the NPWS website for up-to-date information, alerts and closures.

The post Digital annual passes for Kosciuszko National Park make snow season easy appeared first on Snowatch.

Below is a collection of photos of the fresh early season snowfalls taken May 27-30th – 2019 from in and around the NSW and Victorian resorts.

The post May 2019 snowfall photo’s appeared first on Snowatch.

By Pete Taylor
Snow Forecastor & Owner
snowatch.com.au

Season 2018 is about to change for the better in a big way. The Juice is about to be put back into June. It may be a week or so late and we didn’t quite kick off the season the way we would have liked last weekend but fear not, a dump is coming.

The first of a series of cold fronts moved across the mountains Tuesday morning. It was only weak and dropped a little snow up high and showers on the lower slopes. That was expected so no need to worry. We will see some light scattered snow showers across Wednesday and Thursday with the snow level starting to drop.

Things really kick into gear late on Thursday with heavy snowfalls and blizzard conditions overnight and into Friday with decent snow falling for most of Friday to low levels. This should give us enough snow for the resorts to groom and get some runs open for the weekend which is great news. Don’t expect a lot to open up quickly as it takes time for ski patrol to safety check and mark obstacles.

The snow will continue to fall on Saturday and Sunday with another front crossing the mountains. The snow should start to clear later on Monday and by then we should see anywhere from 50-70cm’s in the resorts (check the daily Snowatch 15 day resort forecasts for amount updates). The snow will compact a fair bit so don’t expect to see the actual snow depth anywhere near that.

With cold temps from Thursday through to Monday we should see the snow makers in full swing with all guns blazing for extended periods (even days at a time with temps likely to remain below zero).

If you are in the mountains during this time be careful on the roads as they will be snow affected on Friday and through the weekend. Chains will more than likely need to be fitted so make sure they fit and also that you have someone in the car that knows how to put them on (a practice or refresher before leaving is always helpful). Having a tarp to kneel on and an old pair of gloves so your hands don’t freeze is also a good idea.

By early next week things will be looking great in the resorts and we should see quite a few runs and lifts open for business, don’t expect too much too early though. The long range outlook is also very good for more follow up snowfalls, so June could really be a ‘juicy’ one.

Pete

#juicyjune

snowatch.com.au

The post June is about to get Juicy – A Season Starter! appeared first on Snowatch.

By Pete Taylor
Snow Forecastor & Owner
snowatch.com.au

With the official start to Snow Season 2018 starting on Saturday and there being virtually zero natural snow on the ground and only a smattering of the man made stuff, I’d thought I’d go back over the last 25 years to show that this is actually quite normal and there is no need to panic. This year we have been unlucky in that temps in the resorts have not been great for making snow so things look quite dire in the resorts.

Over the last 25 years we have had 10 years with 0cm as the official snow depth in early June at Spencer’s Creek taken by Snowy Hydro (11 years if you count 2001 that only had 1.8cm depth on June 7). Of these years of no natural snow to start us off we have had good, bad and average seasons so there is no real correlation pointing to what we will end up with this year.

In 1996 there was zero natural snow on the ground as late as June 25 but it ended up as a massive season with a peak depth of 254.2cm taken on October 3rd. On the other side of the ledger 1998 had zero snow on June 4 and only struggled to a paltry peak depth of 138.2cm on August 23.

The last season to not have natural snow at season opening was 2014 and what at the time looked like it was going to be a big but peaked very early on July 24 with 168.5cm.

If we were to take an average from these 11 years that the snow season struggled to get of the ground then we would come up with around 161cm and the peak would be in the third week of August. Over the last ten years or so snowmaking has papered over the fact that early June is usually sketchy. With a couple of good weeks of cold nights leading up to opening weekend the resorts can be top to bottom.

The good news is that we have snow on the way next week, and things look like they will start to pick up fairly quickly with cool temps also allowing the snow guns to fire for extended periods. We should see some lifts running by next weekend, although only on a thin base.

Keep an eye on the Snowatch 15 day resort and Long Range forecasts for developments.

Pete

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