Extreme Storms Smash the Australian Snow Resorts

The ticket office adjacent to the Village Chair was swept away by a landslide. Image:: Courtesy Mt Hotham

Storm Update | Steve Lee

What a weekend it was across the Aussie Alps, after a month of amazingly great conditions, the bubble burst – and the bubble was chockablock full of water.

Massive amounts of rain fell across NSW and Victoria, with some areas of North East Victoria reporting up to 250mm and all the Aussie resorts receiving 100mm or more on Saturday; Falls Creek, Hotham and Buller recorded up to 150mm. All that water created much chaos, not so much in the resorts but certainly just off the mountains where car parks, roads, valleys and even a lift at Hotham got slammed by mud, landslides and a deluge of flood waters.

How the storms effected the resorts
Hotham: The Village Chair ticket office was destroyed by a landslide.
Mt Buller: A landslide swept across the road and through the carpark, pushing some cars over the embankment and closing the road.
Falls Creek: The Bogong High Plains Road was closed for over 24 hours.
Thredbo: The Thredbo River burst its banks and flooded up to the road level.

A landslide swept through the Mt Buller carparks. Image:: Joey Corcoran

All resorts recorded big losses over the weekend, of both snow and business. With very few lifts turning ticket sales were very lean and heavily discounted. Fortunately, as we said in our Mountainwatch forecasts and reports last week, there was more than enough snow on the ground to handle all that water and come out the other side still in good shape. The big saving grace has been 10-20cm of snow over Sunday into today, it’s still falling nicely as I write and it’s looking good out.

Hotham’s Village chair was lucky to escape the landslide that destroyed the adjacent ticket office hut . Image:: Courtesy Steve Lee

Today’s news bulletins are full of stories about North East Victoria flooding, due in large to all the water pouring out of the mountain region. Roads in and out of the Victorian resorts have been mostly closed since Saturday afternoon, the latest reports are saying all the Mountain roads are now open, however down the valley it is like snakes and ladders trying to find a way in or out. So many road and Highway closures it is still difficult to get to the Victorian resorts, certainly from Melbourne. My sister just arrived from SA, but had to dip and weave all the way with several double backs due to road closures. Coming from the north into the NSW resorts by all accounts is fine.

Cars were swept off the road at Mt Buller. Image:: Courtesy Steve Lee

The worst is now certainly past and the week ahead looks good, snow is falling and resorts have done a mountain of work to repair the slopes and runs from the weekend’s water damage. In fact if you turned up today or tomorrow you may well wonder what all the fuss was about with conditions pretty much top notch.

It has been an interesting season so far to say the least. We kicked of with a super cold drought that saw record snowmaking get all resorts up and running and looking good. August we enjoyed those 16 year record high snowfalls and now September had kicked off with major floods. We have just on a month left of the official snow season, there’s well over a metre base of snow on the ground and going on 2010’s track record anything is possible weather wise.

All that being said I think its time for a slide!!

The good news is new snow has fallen, check out the snow cams, forecasts and snow reports

Falls Creek forecasts,
snow reports and
live snow cams.

Mount Buller forecasts,
snow reports and
live snow cams.

Hotham forecasts,
snow reports and
live snow cams.

Thredbo forecasts,
snow reports and
live snow cams.