The 2026 Australian ski season has opened in an all too familiar way: a single lift serving a beginner slope, while the rest of the mountain is barren — and that’s if you have sufficient snow making. After some early-June snowfall, Perisher briefly spun the V8 chair on a thin base before warm temperatures and rainfall washed the snow away entirely. A single conveyor belt is all that remains operational, with the school holidays just two weeks out and no promising forecast in sight. Mt. Buller and Thredbo are faring slightly better thanks to investments in snowmaking equipment known as ice factories that can make artificial snow in up to 20°C.
This is not a new story; in the last decade, Australian resorts only saw two seasons in which substantial terrain could be opened in June. Despite advances in snow making infrastructure, Australian ski resorts are hostage to weather patterns they cannot control. There is, however, a solution, which Australian resorts have not considered. It is proven, commercially viable, and deployed successfully at resorts across Europe and has also started to gain traction in North America. It works in climates warmer than Perisher. It is called snow farming — and the data suggests Australia’s biggest ski resort would be making a mistake to keep ignoring it.
If European ski areas can guarantee snow through summer storage, why isn’t Australia doing the same? When queried by SnowBrains, Perisher General Manager Nathan Butterworth stated that the resort is aware of snow farming but is “not considering it at this time for a variety of reasons.” While Butterworth did not delve into these reasons — and they could be operational, legal, environmental, financial, or logistical — it is a worthwhile discussion to have.
Many people unfamiliar with snow farming often believe that European climates lend themselves more to snow farming, however, climate data assembled by SnowBrains suggests Perisher may be better suited to snow farming than many people assume. In light of shortening ski season, it is certainly a discussion worth having.
What Is Snow Farming?
Snow farming is the practice of preserving snow from one winter season for use in the next. At the end of winter, resorts push remaining snow into large consolidated piles. These are then covered with insulating materials such as sawdust, wood chips, and/or modern synthetic blankets. Through summer, the snow is protected from sun, rain, and wind, before being uncovered in early autumn and redistributed to create skiable terrain.
In essence, it is snow recycling: using last season’s snow for the start of the next. The benefits are straightforward:
- Guaranteed snow for opening days and early-season events
- Lower energy use compared with producing early-season artificial snow
- Reduced operational risk during warm or marginal conditions
The concept is no longer experimental. It is already embedded in operational ski systems across Europe. North American resorts are just starting to experiment with snow farming; Aspen, Colorado, has started at the end of the 2025-26 season with its first snow farming project with the help of Snow Secure’s insulation material.
- Related: Aspen Snowmass Becomes Colorado’s First Resort to Use Snow Secure Storage Mats for Snow Farming
Oberstdorf: The Most Relevant Comparison for Australia
One of the strongest real-world examples for Australia comes from the Bavarian resort of Oberstdorf. In 2022, Oberstdorf trialled large-scale snow farming for the first time, piling approximately 5,000 cubic meters (176,573 cubic feet) of snow at the end of the winter season into a mound roughly 8 meters (26 feet) high, before insulating it with a 50 cm (20-inch) layer of wood chips and sawdust. The goal was simple: secure early-season snow for cross-country ski tracks and Nordic training.
Despite a warm European summer, the results were strong. The resort estimated total volume loss of around 20–25% by late October, with part of that reduction coming not from melting but from natural compaction and settling of the snowpack.
What makes the Oberstdorf example so valid for Australia is that the German resort is not a glacier resort and has comparable climate to Perisher. It sits at just 815 meters (2,789 feet) above sea level, less than half the elevation of Perisher Valley (1,700 meters/5,577 feet). Temperatures and climate at the German resort are surprisingly comparable to Perisher; an important factor when the key objection to snow farming in Australia is that “it is too warm in Australia.” Climate data suggests otherwise.
A comparison between Oberstdorf (1991–2021) and Perisher Valley (1991–2020) shows surprisingly similar summer conditions.
Maximum Temperatures (Summer)
- Oberstdorf: 16.3°C to 17.8°C
- Perisher: 16.1°C to 19.7°C
Minimum Temperatures (Summer)
- Oberstdorf: 6.0°C to 7.8°C
- Perisher: 3.4°C to 5.9°C
While the average maximum day time temperatures in Perisher can be nearly 2°C warmer in summer than in Oberstorf, the average minimum temperatures in Perisher are actually significantly cooler. This is critical as snow farming relies heavily on nighttime cooling to preserve snow mass under insulation.
Precipitation (Summer)
- Oberstdorf: 202–218 mm
- Perisher: 88–114 mm
Rain Days (Summer)
- Oberstdorf: 14–15 days
- Perisher: 5–7 days
Germany is significantly wetter in summer, which would normally cause more erosion, however, this has limited relevance because modern snow farming systems are fully sealed under insulating layers.
Humidity
- Oberstdorf: 77–81%
- Perisher: ~56%
Perisher’s drier summer climate actually reduces moisture retention in the surrounding air and may improve insulation efficiency.
The Science Behind Snow Storage
The method used in European resorts is supported by extensive research from the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (SLF) in Davos. SLF studies have shown that snow piles can survive summer conditions when properly insulated because:
- Wood chips and sawdust reduce solar radiation exposure
- They absorb moisture and reduce direct meltwater loss
- Evaporation creates a cooling effect within the pile
Computer simulations in the SLF study showed that at least 30 to 40 cm (12-16 inches) of sawdust is needed to absorb most of the incoming heat during the day. These simulations also showed that with effective insulation, snow pack losses are not particularly great, even at relatively high temperatures: a 5°C increase in temperature only results in a snow depth loss of 3%.
The sawdust insulation layer was one of the first systems used for snow farming and has proven to be effective in preserving between 70-80% of the snow pack for the next season. Different models now exist across Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, and Slovenia, with some resorts using synthetic insulation mats or layered geotextiles. Irrespective of the insulation material used, the conclusion from the study is clear: snow farming is a viable long-term adaptation strategy for ski areas facing unreliable early-season snow conditions.
Livigno and Levi: Proof at Scale
If Oberstdorf proves feasibility for Australia, larger Alpine and Nordic resorts prove scale. At Livigno, snow farming is now an established part of the ski system. The resort stores tens of thousands of cubic metres of snow annually, with measured summer losses of around 26%, even during one of the warmest summers in 100 years.
At Levi in Finland, operations are even larger. The resort has stored up to 300,000 cubic meters (10.6 million cubic feet) of snow, including 60,000 cubic meters (2.1 million cubic feet) on its World Cup slope alone, enabling one of the earliest and most reliable ski openings in Europe.
Finnish technology company Snow Secure reports that with modern insulation systems, snow loss can be reduced to between 8% and 20%, depending on conditions and material choice.
These are not experimental pilot projects. They are commercial-scale systems supporting international racing calendars and long ski seasons.
To put that into a Perisher perspective: to guarantee early-season coverage for a single 2-kilometer beginner and intermediate run at Perisher — enough to open meaningfully for school holidays — would require approximately 40,000 cubic meters of stored snow, roughly 13% of what Levi stores each year as a matter of routine.
The Australian ski industry continues to rely entirely on early-season natural snowfall and snow making. With natural snowfall becoming increasingly unreliable and snowmaking windows being unreliable, Australian resorts should investigate other options, which would ensure early-season opening and thus income generation for resorts and surrounding industries. Europe has already moved toward hybrid systems combining snowmaking + snow farming to guarantee early-season coverage. For Australia, the timing is particularly critical. The ski season is compressed into a short window, and the late-June to early-July school holiday period is an important revenue block of the year. A guaranteed snow base of even a few kilometers of terrain would fundamentally change operational reliability.
While snow farming requires infrastructure, planning, and upfront investment in grooming and storage systems, it is more energy and cost efficient than snow making at the start of the season. More importantly, with the proper insulation, it provides a reliability natural snowfall and snowmaking window simply cannot offer. Therefore, it is not surprising that it is increasingly being adopted as it reduces long-term risk for resorts. In Europe, that reliability is already reshaping how resorts think about season start dates.
The biggest obstacle to snow farming in Australian ski resorts could be objections from National Parks authorities, within whose boundaries many Australian resorts operate. However, from an environmental standpoint, snow farming should be viewed favorably as its energy consumption is significantly lower than that of artificial snowmaking, making it a more sustainable option for resorts already operating under scrutiny for their environmental footprint. The most important takeaway from this analysis is that the assumption that Australia is too warm for snow farming does not hold up under data. The barriers to snow farming at Perisher are not climatic. They are operational.
As early-season volatility continues to challenge the Australian ski industry, snow farming offers something that is increasingly rare in modern skiing: certainty at the start of the season. Whether Australia adopts it or not may determine what early June skiing looks like in the decade ahead.
Climate Data Sources:
https://de.climate-data.org/europa/deutschland/bayern/oberstdorf-58169/ http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_071075.shtml