Major Australian alpine resorts are closing their ski operations up to a month early after a winter that broke multiple records for heat with limited snow falls being washed away by rain.
Predictions in June that a building El Niño could combine with global heating for a challenging ski season came to pass, with seven resorts either already closed or announcing ski lifts will stop operating this weekend.
This week the Victorian resorts of Mt Buller, Mt Hotham and Falls Creek, together with Charlotte Pass in New South Wales, all announced ski operations would end this weekend.
The Victorian resort of Mt Baw Baw, the NSW resort at Selwyn and Tasmaniaâs Ben Lomond have already closed. Resorts typically aim to stay open until the first weekend of October.
Resorts blamed âchallengingâ weather conditions and lack of snowfall. Two other major NSW resorts at Perisher and Thredbo remain open.
âThe season was frankly a shocker. This was the fourth disappointing season since 2020,â said Dr Andrew Watkins, a climate scientist and adjunct professor at the Monash University and a science advisor to the campaign group Protect our Winters.
âThe problems were El Niño and climate change. It was not that dry this year, but the problem was the warmth. The heat just did us in.â
Watkins, who is also a keen skier, said winter temperatures had been too high and precipitation that might have fallen as snow, had instead fallen as rain.
âRain is the natural enemy of a snowpack. It melts it and then washes it away,â he said.
Data from the Bureau of Meteorology show Falls Creek and Mt Hotham had their wettest winters in more than 30 years but, together with Mt Buller, they also had their warmest winters on record for average maximum and minimum temperatures.
Watkins said data from weather observations at Cabramurra in Kosciuszko national park suggested alpine winters had warmed by about 2C since the 1960s.
He said that temperature rise would have been the difference between precipitation falling as rain instead of snow. âIt would have been a bumper season if it had been 50 years ago,â he said.
The El Niño currently in place in the Pacific ocean can promote hotter and drier temperatures in Australiaâs southeast in winter and spring.
This week the bureau forecast the current El Niño would be the strongest on record and Australian scientists said climate change had made the strength of the event six times more likely.
A bureau spokesperson said this winterâs heat was consistent âwith a developing strong El Niñoâ and the season had seen long periods of high pressure in the Tasman Sea that directed warmer air from the north over alpine regions.
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âBut winter 2026 also experienced relatively warm nights, with cloud cover and moist soils resulting in less overnight cooling,â the spokesperson said.
âThis is in contrast with historical El Niño events. This is all occurring against the background of a globally warmer climate, with daily global surface air temperatures since June close to or above the record levels in 2024.â
New South Wales, Tasmania and Victoria all recorded their hottest winters on record this year.
In July, many ski resorts broke all-time heat records for the month with temperatures during one hot spell upto 12C above average.
Climate scientists have been warning for decades that global heating will create a challenging future for Australiaâs ski resorts and alpine habitats.
Josh Elliott, chief executive at the representative body Snow Resorts Australia, said there was âno question it has been a challenging season for natural snowfall.â
âThis winter was shaped by a combination of abnormally warm weather and climatic variability, but itâs important to remember that in any outdoor environment, that variability can result in some seasons being better than others.
âThis is an abnormal season and shouldnât be considered in isolation as a reflection of what future seasons will look like.â
He said skiing, snowboarding and snowplay had still been available in NSW, Victoria and the ACT âsince the June long weekend, with all resorts across Australia operating through the July school holidays and beyond.â
âWhat this season has shown is the importance and value of the investment resorts have made in snowmaking, with underlying demand for snow holidays remaining strong through July and August.â
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