School holiday snow arrives at 11th hour after overnight blizzard

Following the worst start to a ski season in decades, a major snowstorm hit the NSW and Victorian Alps last night.

The blizzard has rapidly transformed the alpine region, which just 36 hours ago, more than four weeks into winter, was still devoid of snow cover.

The cold front will kick off a more permanent change in the weather for south-east states, with colder weather ahead during the coming week.

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Worst start to ski season since 1957

For parts of the alpine region, it was the warmest June in 59 years.

This resulted in no natural snow accumulating at ski resorts as temperatures spent most of the month well above freezing.

For example, Perisher picked up 301 millimetres of precipitation from June 1 to July 2, of which only 25mm fell with a temperature below 0 degrees Celsius.

The result saw Snowy Hydro measure a snow depth of 0cm at Spencers Creek on July 1, against a long-term average depth of 70 centimetres one month into winter.

The last time there was next to no snow by July 1 was 2015; however, colder nights in June of that year allowed for snowmaking.

1967 also had a near snowless June, before snow arrived on July 1.

Going further back, in 1957, snow did not accumulate until the second week of July; therefore, it is a reasonable argument to say 2026 has been the worst start to a ski season in 69 years.

Holiday snow arrives at 11th hour

With school holidays starting tomorrow, the lack of snow was becoming a desperate situation for the alpine community, and for the thousands who already have ski trips booked.

But after a wintry mix of rain and snow on Thursday, a cold front swept across the Alps last night, dropped temperatures below freezing, and delivered the first proper dump of the season.

By early Friday morning, an average of around 20cm had accumulated on the higher slopes of Thredbo, Perisher, Mount Hotham and Falls Creek.

And snowfalls will continue across the ski resorts on Friday, with another 10 to 20cm possible, before snowfalls clear tonight.

Thankfully, with the arrival of post-frontal polar air, today's snow level of between 1,000 and 1,400 metres will allow flakes to also settle across the alpine valleys and smaller ski resorts like Selwyn Snowfields and Mount Baw Baw.

And while no further significant snow is on the forecast during the coming week, sub-zero nights and snowmaking look likely through the weekend, which will hopefully allow resorts to open up some terrain in time for the holidays.

For Tasmania though, another front will arrive tonight and will bring snow down to an elevation of 700m on Saturday morning.

Looking further ahead, the next chance of snow is next weekend when another round of winter cold fronts moves in off the Southern Ocean.

Short-term chill, but warm winter still likely

The mean temperature across Australia in June was 1.5C above the 1961 to 1990 baseline, and the warmest in 30 years.

The unseasonable heat was most noticeable across the east, where northerly winds prevailed for the majority of the month.

For eastern states, June's mean was a whopping 2.17C above the baseline, the second warmest on record (since 1910) — and for some pockets, including Sydney, June's temperatures were the highest on record.

But cooler air from the Southern Ocean is now finally making it feel more like winter.

Adelaide and Melbourne recorded near-normal highs on Thursday of 15C and 14C, and after Sydney reached a balmy 23C on Thursday, a cooler 19C is forecast for the city today.

Near-average winter temperatures will then continue for the next week across south-east states; however, the Bureau of Meteorology's long-range modelling still heavily favours warmer-than-average weather dominating the month for our capitals — although the nation's interior is now expected to be cooler than average this July.

The outlook is even more confident that August temperatures will be above normal, a typical pattern during El Niño years, which regularly bring some of the warmest months on record.