The pattern’s evolving. Cold air’s on the move, and the forecasts aren’t mincing their words. You’ve seen the signs — a tightening pressure gradient, moisture lurking to the sou-west, and freezing levels are on the decline. It’s not here yet, but it’s close enough to matter. Your Friday productivity has ground to a halt. You’ve checked the gear pile twice, refreshed the forecast ten times, and every update draws you in further. Distraction is mounting. The Alps are about to shift gears — and you can feel it. Here it comes:
How Much Could We Expect?
It’s a complex system with numerous troughs and embedded lows - delivered over a 72-hour window, starting tonight. Each of those features could easily deliver localised totals of 10-15cm each - that’s what makes it incredibly difficult to throw a figure at it. At the high-end scale, we could see falls exceed 70-80cm on the Main Range of NSW and the high alpine of Victoria.
Nonetheless, there’s no fun sitting on the fence; resort snow totals over the forthcoming days are estimated as follows, using a multitude of various models:
The cumulative snowfall projection from Friday through Monday evening, as shown by the EC model (below). As cautiously noted, this system is loaded with complex features, and when combined with local terrain influences, it’s likely to throw some of these totals into question. On top of that, the cold nature of this system may skew typical 1:1 snow-to-liquid ratios, meaning we could see more snow on the ground than model outputs suggest. That said, the alpine will be stacked with an early-season base — a solid setup for the winter ahead. Expect resorts to expand their open terrain from Tuesday or Wednesday onwards.
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Stay tuned for more updates over the weekend.
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