Alpine Resorts Deploy Snowmaking Technology to Safeguard Future Amid Warming Winters

Five years ago, alpine tourism looked very different at Tasmania's Ben Lomond resort, where ski lifts operated for a mere 17 days of the year. Fast forward to 2023, and that figure climbed to 60 days, expanding even further to 104 days last year. According to the resort's managing director, Ben Mock, who acquired the business in 2021, this dramatic turnaround is credited to a single, crucial element: snow-making machinery.

"When we started to make snow it turned the business around massively," Mock said. "We had increases on our first year of around 280 per cent in sales and the following year we saw more of a growth on that of about 150 per cent."

With an investment of nearly $1 million in six specialized snow guns, Ben Lomond’s operations now depend heavily on the technology. Mock emphasized that the business would not survive without this infrastructure. "It gives us a guaranteed product on the ground," he explained. "Snow-making is an insurance policy for not only us, but all ski resorts." He added: "We don't know when Mother Nature is going to deliver the goods, but by having the cold weather that we normally get … when there might not be much precipitation or snow in the air, we can compensate that by making snow."

This shift is part of a broader trend. As rising temperatures reduce natural snow depths, artificial snow-making has become vital to keeping ski seasons alive and ensuring resorts remain financially viable.

In late June, monitoring cameras depicted a grim start to the season. Visitors at resorts like Victoria's Mount Buller, alongside Thredbo and Perisher in New South Wales, were restricted to thin strips of machine-made snow. Fortunately, a significant snowfall during the first weekend of July restored the traditional winter scenery.

Barney Davis, a veteran at Perisher who started as a lift operator nearly 50 years ago, noted that the fresh snow has significantly boosted morale. "We were doing it tough, we had a bit of man-made [snow] and people were still playing and learning and being out on all these snow patches," Davis said. "Then along comes this snow and people have come from far and wide, and it's terrific."

Reflecting on the unpredictability of early winter, Davis remarked: "You don't have June the same every year, and there's been many years where we haven't had snow until July," he said.

Despite natural seasonal variations, long-term scientific data indicates a clear decline in natural snow cover. According to the latest State of the Climate report, alpine regions have seen a downward trend in snow depth, cover, and overall snow days since the late 1950s. Furthermore, a joint study by the Australian Mountain Research Facility and the Australian National University (ANU)—commissioned by climate advocacy group Protect our Winters—revealed a 30 percent reduction in snow cover between 1954 and 2012. This shift has shortened the ski season by approximately 30 percent across most Australian alpine resorts.

While Snowy Hydro’s data from Spencers Creek near Thredbo and Perisher showed a peak depth of at least 220cm during last year's strong season, the overall trend points to a contraction. In fact, 2023 and 2024 recorded the shortest seasons and lowest snow depths seen in more than 15 years. Following a brief 14cm reading in early June, depths for 2026 remained at zero until July 7, when a 35cm snowfall was recorded just ahead of the New South Wales school holidays.

The current season coincides with an El Niño declaration, which typically correlates with lower peak snow depths. However, global warming trends remain the primary driver of the long-term decline. Global average temperatures are now roughly 1.2 to 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial baselines, and are projected to rise past 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next ten years. For some alpine districts, this year's season kicked off during the warmest June recorded in 59 years.

Stuart Browning, chief climate scientist at Risk Frontiers, explained the pattern: "Late starts to the season and poor seasons have been happening as long as we've had snow up there, but all of the evidence points to climate change giving us more warm precipitation events," he said. "It leads us to have a shorter season. It tends to start a little bit later, but what we've seen recently is it's finishing a fair bit earlier as well."

He noted the tight margin for snowfall: "It can only be a couple of degrees difference between good snowfall or rain and so as temperatures warm, we're getting more of our storms come through and we're getting rain instead of snow."

Ruby Olsson, an ANU alpine researcher and PhD candidate, highlighted how rising temperatures affect the resorts' ability to adapt. "We're seeing increased temperatures, reduced snow, snow melting more quickly and, as a result, we're seeing ski season lengths contract," she said. Olsson pointed out that snow-making itself requires specific environmental conditions. "That requires certain temperatures and humidity … and what we're seeing with climate change is we're having warmer nights, and we're seeing those conditions reduce," she said. "The more that we can reduce our emissions and stay within that lower or mid-emission scenario, the greater chance that all of the Australian resorts, particularly those lower [elevation] ones, will have to adapt."

Altitude plays a key role. Browning noted that higher resorts like Thredbo and Perisher are better positioned. "That's because temperatures drop as you go higher in altitude," he said. "So the higher the resort, the more likely you are to get snow instead of rain."

Discussing future outlooks, Browning added: "Under a best-case scenario where we get global warming under control and cap warming levels at below around 2 degrees above pre-industrial, it's not going to be too bad," he said. "We're still looking at getting around 60 days each winter for snow-making, which is enough for the resorts to be viable right through to the end of the century." Browning warned of alternative paths: "But if we follow that worst case scenario, then that drops to, you know, around 20 to 30 days per winter by the end of the century."

Similar struggles are occurring globally. Earlier this year, NASA identified a major snow drought in the western United States, with satellite records from January 15 showing the lowest snow coverage since 2001 at 369,000 square kilometers. Lower-elevation resorts in small European towns have faced closures due to unviable operating conditions. Conversely, Japan continues to enjoy consistent winter snowfall, while New Zealand resorts managed delayed openings this year by relying heavily on snow-making. Paul Anderson, chief executive of NZSki, described the technology as "critical" to their operations.