Polar blast brings early snowfall to NZ skifields

Skiers are hopeful of a good season this winter after a polar blast brought an early snowfall to fields in both the North and South Islands.

Staff at Cardrona Alpine Resort and Mt Ruapehu have had two dumps of snow in as many days as the chilly south-westerly moved up the country bringing with it snow and freezing temperatures.

"We've received a good 10cm-15cm of snow at our bases at each ski area, Whakapapa and Turoa," Simon Dickson, executive manager commercial at Mt Ruapehu said.

"We've had snow down to around 900m over night, which is around at Ohakune and the sort of Chateau Rd area."

The Whakapapa Rd area was now open to traffic, he said, while the Turoa Rd was "still marginal at this stage".

"We haven't had anyone up on the upper field to check how much snow has fallen up there, but it will be certainly greater than at base due tow wind and the higher altitude. We had a fairly good amount of snow last night."

The early snow fall was "promising" for the season ahead, Mr Dickson said.

"We always get a good one or two snowfalls like this in April and early May, so it's just a nice reminder that Mother Nature's at work and we're on the back of that blast that's giving the South Island and our ski fields colleagues down there a bit of a dump of snow as well."

It was "very positive for the ski season", he said.

"It's a nice environment at the moment, it's lovely to come up and see the snow, which is great."

At the Cardrona resort near Wanaka, "pretty good" snow drifts of between 50cm and 70cm had accumulated yesterday on the mountain.

"It's really good at this time of the year, more for marketing than anything else," Adam Wilson, from the resort's sales and marketing department, said. "It gets people interested in the ski season. A lot of people are thinking about it at this stage anyway, but especially over in Australia seeing all of these snow images definitely makes them think, 'we're in for a good ski season'.

"To be quite honest, it never really has too much of an indication at this point, it's more of a good marketing tool than necessarily a good omen for the winter.

"We'd rather get this at the start of May when we know the grounds are colder and it'll stay around for longer. But it definitely helps to cool the temperatures down which is a good lead-in."