Climate Adaptation in the Australian Snowsports Industry
- Briefing Note 516
The Australian 2025 snow season kicked off recently with a powerful winter storm cycle bringing snow to low elevations. Heavy falls across all alpine areas have snow-lovers hoping this winter will be better than the previous two. While early snow is better than nothing, it’s still no guarantee more storms will follow.
The Australian season is notoriously fickle and difficult to forecast, relationships with major climate drivers tend to be weak and inconsistent (e.g., Pepler et. al, 2015), leading to an assortment of indicators being used: folk lore has it that if Lake Eyre is full, then it will be a great season, early whale sightings are also apparently a good sign. However, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM 2025) seasonal forecast is probably the most credible indicator: they are currently predicting warmer than average temperatures, with about average precipitation. Not an ideal forecast, but the snowsports industry (including resorts, visitors, and other snow-dependant businesses) are hopeful it will be better than warm dry conditions experienced in recent years.
2023 and 2024 had the shortest seasons and lowest snow depths in over 15 years; with unusually strong hot dry northwest winds decimating the 2024 snowpack over a period of just a couple of days (Browning 2024). These low-snow years have coincided with increasing publicity around the impending demise of the Australian snowsports industry due to climate change, or more specifically global warming (e.g. ABC 2024). It’s been 20 years since Bicknell and McManus (2006) described the Australian snowsports industry as the “Canary in the coal mine”; referring to its vulnerability to increasing temperatures and the expectation it will be one of the first industries to feel the impacts of a warming world.
Yet over the past 20-years, while temperatures have increased, snowpacks have remained relatively stable (at least in terms of maximum snow depth; Figure 1) and the Australian snow sports industry has defied expectations by continuing to grow. Participation is trending upwards (despite low visitation over the past 2-years; Figure 1) and Australia’s largest resort, Perisher, has just invested another $27M in infrastructure including a new 6-seat chair lift—hardly the picture of an industry in distress.
Climate adaptation
This apparent success can be attributed to a raft of innovative adaptations over the past 10-years which have effectively insulated the industry from climate variability and, for the time being at least, are protecting it from the impacts of global warming. These adaptations include the obvious expansion of snowmaking capability to account for diminishing natural snowfalls, as well as terrain modification to enhance visitor experience, however the most successful adaptation has been a financial strategy, spearheaded by Vail Resorts, that protects both the resort and visitors from the risk of a “bad season”.
Financial adaptation
Back in the early noughties most visitors purchased single or multi-day tickets for the duration of their visit. If snow conditions were poor, visitors would refrain from purchasing tickets, leaving the industry highly exposed to weather variability. The equation was simple: if it didn’t snow much, people wouldn’t ski much, and resorts didn’t profit. Dedicated enthusiasts could purchase a season pass, but these were expensive, requiring about 14 days use to be financially worthwhile, thus excluding most visitors.
By the late noughties Vail Resorts had decided to try something different, they slashed the price of season passes and increased the price of day tickets—effectively encouraging participants towards a subscription model. Season passes suddenly became the most economically viable option for most regular visitors. This had the immediate impact of driving up season pass sales and subsequent visitation numbers. However, the real benefit was that Vail Resorts locked in a large portion of their revenue before the season even started. With this shift they were no longer exposed to weather variability: if it didn’t snow much, it didn’t really matter as most visitors had already paid. While this appears to shift risk from resorts to consumers, Vail Resorts have offset this to a large degree through snowmaking, terrain modification, and reciprocal arrangements between its own resorts and other partners.
This approach was so successful that in 2015 Vail Resorts began exporting it to the world, starting with its purchase of Australia’s largest resort, Perisher (it has since acquired over 30 resorts including Hotham and Falls Creek). Now, if snow conditions are unfavourable at one resort, season pass holders can use their passes at other participating resorts. In the case of the Australian season, even if we are faced with a disappointing winter, those who can travel will find their season passes accepted at a growing number of international destinations during the following Northern Hemisphere winter—75+ for the Epic Australia Pass and 60+ for the Ikon Pass.
One of the key motivations for Vail Resorts in purchasing Perisher, was to gain access to the Australian snowsports market of well-heeled and well-travelled skiers (The Guardian 2015). The season pass model has become a mutually beneficial adaptation that effectively reduces the risk of a “bad season” to both the resort and the consumer and has helped drive increased visitation to resorts worldwide. Australians are now travelling internationally for snow holidays at higher numbers than ever before, with Japan emerging as a favoured destination.
Snowmaking and terrain modification
A low-snow season 20-years ago was bad news for both resorts and visitors (the historical impact of low-snow years on visitation is illustrated in Figure 1). However, investments in snowmaking and terrain modification mean that even without natural snowfall, visitors to the larger resorts can now ski most runs and find challenging terrain for all ability levels.
Terrain parks have been effective at providing interesting terrain and acting as snowbanks that can be utilised later in the season if required (Figure 2). Larger resorts that have pro-actively invested in adaptation can open earlier, stay open longer, and provide a wider range of terrain options without relying on natural snowfall.
Resorts now expect visitors to pay up-front; in exchange, visitors can expect almost guaranteed snow, interesting terrain, and for those who can travel, the ability to ski year-round on one pass.
The Future
Innovative adaptation measures have thus-far been successful in insulating Australia’s largest resorts from the impacts of warming temperatures. But for smaller operations and those at lower elevations the situation is not so positive. Mt Selwyn is proving to be an unfortunate poster child for the impacts of global warming. Destroyed by bushfire in 2020 and rebuilt in 2022, Mt Selwyn is situated at a lower elevation without extensive snowmaking capability, meaning over the past 2 years it was only able to operate for a handful of days, and has not experienced a “normal” operating season in the past 5 years. Many smaller businesses including accommodation providers, retail, and tour operators still need natural snowfall to generate revenue, so remain highly exposed to climate variability.
Snowmaking will remain a critical part of snow industry adaptation. Although Figure 1 shows little change in natural snow depths over the past 20-years, since 1955 there has been a declining trend that is projected to continue under all plausible scenarios (e.g., Grose and Hennessy 2024). The latest regional climate modelling for Australia from the NARCliM2.0 project shown in Figure 3 indicates that temperatures will continue to increase during precipitation events (meaning more rain-on-snow days), while the number of snowfall days, total snowfall, and suitable snowmaking days will continue to decrease. For larger resorts at higher elevations these changes are likely to be manageable under the “best-plausible-case” scenario (SSP126) where global warming is limited to below 2C. However, under the “worst- plausible-case” scenario (SSP370), changes beyond 2050 will begin to threaten the viability of all snowsport operations in Australia.
Will 2025 be a good season?
So back to the forecast for the rest of 2025: will it be a “good” snow season? Lake Eyre is filling up, so maybe it will snow lots? Unfortunately, that lore seems to have been debunked (Hope et. al, 2004; Yang et. al, 2023). Whether a snow season is perceived as good or not is often (unfortunately) reduced to simply measuring snow depth (e.g., Pepler et. al, 2015). It’s true that diehard weatherproof skiers typically love years with a deep snowpack, but this means lots of blizzard days. What’s usually not appreciated is that blizzard days are tough, resort operations are difficult, chairlifts need de-icing and often cannot run in windy conditions, roads become blocked, and most people are not really all that weather-proof (e.g. The Guardian 2025).
The majority of resort visitors and backcountry skiers enjoy nice sunny “bluebird” days. Many international resorts even use this as a selling point, for example Kimberly prides itself as being the sunniest resort in British Columbia. NSW resorts enjoy an average of around 21 sunny days each season (cloud cover below 25% from June to September). Winter 2022 was considered a “good” season due to having a snow depth of over 200cm, but there were only 9 sunny days; whereas 2006 was considered a “bad” season due to having a snow depth of less than 100cm, yet it had 37 sunny days. Australia’s snow sports industry could increase the probability of a “good” season, simply by adjusting the definition of “good” to include nice weather, especially now that snowmaking has reduced reliance on natural snowfall.
Thanks to a raft of innovative climate adaptations, the winter snow-weather forecast is less relevant than it used to be. With extensive snowmaking, interesting terrain, and the option to re-use lift passes during the Northern Hemisphere winter (fancy a quick trip to Japan?) the Australian season is almost certain to be “good”, at least for another decade or so.
References
Bicknell, S., and P. McManus, 2006: The Canary in the Coalmine: Australian Ski Resorts and their Response to Climate Change. Geographical Research, 44, 386–400, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-5871.2006.00409.x.
Browning, S. 2024 A Wild and Windy end to Winter 2024. (Browning 2024) https://riskfrontiers.com/insights/a-wild-and-windy-end-to-winter-2024/
Grose, M., Hennessy, K., (2024) Climate concerns: Trends in Australian snow https://www.csiro.au/en/news/All/Articles/2024/June/snow-trends-Australia
Hope, P., N. Nicholls, and J. McGregor, 2004: The rainfall response to permanent inland water in Australia. Australian Meteorological Magazine, 53/4.
Pepler, A. S., B. Trewin, and C. Ganter, 2015: The influences of climate drivers on the Australian snow season. Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal, https://doi.org/10.1080/00049999.1959.11509568.
Yang, Z., D. Ryu, M. Lo, M. C. Peel, S. Y. Narsey, and K. A. McColl, 2023: Negligible Impact on Precipitation From a Permanent Inland Lake in Central Australia. Geophys. Res. Lett., 50, https://doi.org/10.1029/2023gl103913.
BOM 2025. Climate Outlook. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/outlooks/#/overview/summary
ABC 2024. Australia’s ski season is on a downhill slope, but new data shows there’s an off-ramp. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-08/australias-ski-season-retracts-but-there-is-hope/103951558
The Guardian 2015, Perisher ski resort bought by US giant Vail in bid to lure Australians abroad. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/apr/06/perisher-ski-resort-bought-by-us-giant-vail-in-bid-to-lure-australians-abroad
The Guardian 2025, Thirteen people rescued after spending night in cars amid heavy snowfall across Victorian and NSW alps. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/09/thirteen-people-trapped-in-cars-overnight-and-hikers-rescued-as-heavy-snow-falls-across-victorian-and-nsw-alps
