Spring has brought the promise of perfect show ski conditions in New Zealand’s Otago region, with record snowfall.
A spring storm has caused heavy snow to blanket central Otago overnight, causing chaos across the region.
While the record snowfall dump will be good news for skifields towards the end of the season, the Remarkables, Coronet Peak, Cardrona and Treble Cone have all closed for the day to cope with the snow.
45cm of fresh, dry powder snow has fallen at Cardrona since last night. This morning (New Zealand time) it was still snowing heavily, and the forecast is that the snow is to continue throughout the day. This is the largest single snowfall of winter 2018.
“Cardrona is closed today whilst we get a handle on this massive snow dump. We expect to resume operations tomorrow with fine forecast predicted by the Metservice,” says Mat Woods.
Residents in Queenstown, Frankton, Arrowtown and surrounding areas were all without power this morning.
Air New Zealand had to cancel flights in and out of Queenstown on Monday morning, while disruption to flights is likely to continue throughout the day, a spokesperson said.
It is expected that the snow conditions could carry on for some hours more, maybe even until midnight on Monday.
