The South America snow forecast favors an early-season base-building storm from Thursday, June 11 into early Sunday, June 14, with lift-served skiing still closed across the region. The best near-term snow is focused on Corralco, Nevados de Chillán, Cerro Catedral, and Chapelco, while the central Chile areas see only light amounts. Confidence is strongest from Thursday, June 11 through early Sunday, June 14; later next week still has snow potential, but the guidance spreads out on timing and intensity.
The ongoing northern Patagonia storm continues through Friday before tapering into Saturday. At Cerro Catedral and Chapelco, recent weather shows snow had already started before this forecast period, so this is a continuation rather than a fresh start. The individual models converge well on the Thursday and Friday timing, but they diverge on intensity because one solution is much drier than the rest. Snow levels generally sit around 800-1,600 meters near Catedral and 400-1,600 meters near Chapelco during the snow, with SLRs mostly 6-11, so snow quality should run dense to moderate, improving at times. Gusty ridge winds could affect exposed terrain, especially around Chapelco and Catedral.
Southern Chile gets the most useful base-building from late Thursday night through Saturday. Corralco and Nevados de Chillán have the strongest near-term signal, with the individual models tightly aligned on timing but spread on whether the storm lands moderate or heavy. Snow levels range roughly 1,000-1,700 meters at Corralco and 1,200-2,100 meters at Nevados de Chillán, so lower slopes may see wetter snow or mixed quality at times while upper terrain stacks up better. SLRs mostly run 4-10, favoring dense, base-building snow. Las Leñas sees a shorter Friday-Saturday pulse, while Cerro Castor stays colder with periodic lighter snow and lower snow levels.
Central Chile is mostly quiet in the strongest confidence period, then turns more uncertain next week. Portillo, La Parva, Valle Nevado, and El Colorado only get light snow through the weekend, generally around a trace to a couple centimeters at the resort elevations. The individual models diverge after Thursday, June 18, with a weak central Chile signal and a more meaningful June 20-21 wave possible from Las Leñas south into northern Patagonia and Corralco. Treat that longer-range storm as speculative for now: a realistic outcome is another modest to locally moderate refresh, with outlier solutions showing bigger totals in southern Chile and northern Patagonia.
South America Snow Forecast Resort Totals (Thu Jun 11 – Sun Jun 14)
- Corralco – 44-60 cm
- Cerro Catedral – 34-45 cm
- Nevados de Chillán – 32-45 cm
- Chapelco – 22-29 cm
- Las Leñas – 11-16 cm
- Cerro Castor – 5-7 cm
- Valle Nevado – 2 cm
- Portillo – 1-2 cm
- El Colorado – 0-1 cm
- La Parva – 0-1 cm