The 2026 snow season is winding down early across the Australian Alps, with resort closures, businesses put up for sale and a marked lack of snow marking what the Bureau of Meteorology says is the hottest winter on record for the Alps.
The Bureau said the Alps had the highest mean June-August temperatures on record across much of Victoria, NSW, the ACT and Tasmania.
The season typically peaks in August and runs through to October, but rising temperatures and heavy rain events have cut snow cover and brought an early end to the season this year.
Mt Baw Baw in Victoria and Selwyn Snow Resort in NSW both closed for the season last week. Selwyn cited a “challenging winter” and the impact of rain on remaining snow cover.
Freeskier and sports commentator Mia “Miff” Rennie, a Protect Our Winters (POW) Athlete Alliance member who grew up skiing at Selwyn, said conditions there had changed dramatically from the deep-snow winters of her childhood, adding that alpine communities need urgent action to preserve future winters.
The stakes for the Alps are significant: the resort economy is worth more than AU$3 billion annually and supports more than 12,000 jobs in Victoria alone. Mt Hotham’s Hoff Hut has closed for the season and is up for sale, with snow cams showing its ski-in, ski-out access without snow cover. Thredbo Alpine Resort’s valuation has reportedly dropped more than 50 per cent, from AU$292 million to AU$143 million.
The season follows Australia’s most successful Winter Olympics campaign, though athletes are increasingly training overseas as local snow reliability declines. 2026 Olympian and moguls skier Jackson Harvey praised the ski industry’s efforts to maximise skiable days this season but said shortened domestic training windows are forcing athletes to seek opportunities abroad.
This marks the fourth poor snow season since 2020. POW director and climate lawyer Dr Lily O’Neill said continued approvals of recent coal and gas projects sit at odds with their impact on alpine economies.
According to POW’s “Our Changing Snowscapes” report, snow cover has fallen by 30 per cent since the mid-1950s and ski season length has shortened by 17-28 per cent across most alpine resorts, with a further 44-55 day reduction projected by 2050.
Dr Andrew Watkins, a POW Science Alliance member and National Climate Risk Assessment lead author, noted how dramatically snowfall benchmarks have shifted within a generation, and stressed the importance of protecting alpine communities that depend on the high country.
