The Australian Alps are experiencing one of their worst snow seasons on record, with the snowpack rapidly declining during what should be the deepest week of the year.

The Australian snow season officially runs from June to October, typically starting and ending on the long weekends in each month.

In an average year, the snowpack usually becomes established in May or June, then builds from June to August and reaches a peak depth in late August or early September. The snow depth then gradually drops in September and October as spring warmth causes the snow to melt.

This season has not followed that typical pattern. The snowpack didn’t become established until July and since then, repetitive bouts of abnormally warm air and rain have continued to suppress the natural snow depth. Large areas of the Alps, particularly the lower elevations, have struggled to maintain much of a snowpack at all this season.

How deep was the snow this season?

According to manual snow depth measurements carried out by Snowy Hydro, this season’s peak snow depth at Spencers Creek in NSW (1830 m above sea level) was 94.5 cm on August 13. This is well below the site’s long-term average peak depth of 196.2 cm.

If 94.5 cm remains Spencers Creek’s season peak for 2026, this will be the third lowest peak depth in records dating back to 1954. It would also be only the third time Spencers Creek’s manual readings have remained below the one metre mark all season, joining 91 cm in 1982 and 85.1 cm in 2006.

The Spencers Creek snow depth measuring site sits at around 1830 m above sea level, roughly in between the Perisher and Thredbo ski resorts. This is widely regarded as the best long-term snow depth record in the Australian Alps.

Snowy Hydro also measures snow depths at two other locations further down the mountain. One is Deep Creek at around 1620 m elevation, and the other is Three Mile Dam at 1460 m elevation. For both sites, the current peak depths for 2026 are the lowest on record, with 8.3 cm on August 6 at Deep Creek and 5.5 cm on August 11 at Three Mile Dam.

The maps below show snow cover captured by polar orbiting satellites in August this year and August 2021. While both images show snow on higher terrain in the Alps, there is noticeably less snow in the lower valleys in 2026 compared to 2021.

Image: Visible satellite image showing snow cover in the NSW Alps on August 14, 2026. Source: Copernicus / Sentinel-2.

Image: Visible satellite image showing snow cover in the NSW Alps on August 10, 2021. Source: Copernicus / Sentinel-2.

Snow melting quickly during the typical season peak

The long-term average peak snow depth at Spencers Creek occurs around August 30, which means this Sunday marks what should be the best snow depth of the season. Unfortunately, the snow has been melting since the middle of August thanks to repetitive rounds of warm air and rain.

Automated snow depth readings suggest that the snow depth around the Spencers Creek area have dropped by about 35 cm since the middle of August. This means that there is currently less than 70 cm of natural snow on the ground at a time of year that averages 196.2 cm.

Why has the snow been so bad this season?

Snow requires two key ingredients: cold air and moisture. This season has had plenty of moisture passing over the Australian Alps, but it has often been too warm for this to fall as snow.

Thredbo Top Station is Australia’s highest weather station, located at 1957 m above sea level near the top of the Kosciuszko chairlift at Thredbo Resort. This station has registered 638.2 mm of precipitation so far this season, as of 9am on Thursday, August 27. This is almost double the site’s long-term winter average of 323 mm and makes this season Thredbo’s 4th wettest winter in records dating back to 1967.

If the air was cold enough to make this precipitation fall as snow, this would have been one of the best snow seasons on record. Unfortunately, it was too warm.

The average maximum temperature at Thredbo Top Station this winter, as of 9am on August 27, was 2.47°C above the long-term average. This has been Thredbo’s warmest winter on record based on mean maximum temperatures.

The combination of above average rain and above average temperatures in the Australian Alps this season is likely due to the combined influence of:

A strong and intensifying El Niño in the tropical Pacific Ocean

Above average sea surface temperatures surrounding most of Australia, with temperatures more than 2°C above average in the Tasman Sea to the east of the Alps

The background warming influence of climate change

Will there be more snow this season?

Looking ahead, there are no signs of heavy snow during the rest of August and the opening week of September. It is possible for late-season cold fronts to deliver big dumps of snow in late-September and October. However, seasonal forecast models are currently predicting below-average rain and above average temperatures in the Alps for the next two months, which does not bode well for snow.