The Rainbow Ski Area team has been working “non-stop” to get the mountain ready for the season, with plans to open two weeks early.
The Rainbow Ski Area team has been working “non-stop” to get the mountain ready for the season, with plans to open two weeks early.
The team at Rainbow was gearing up to start making snow this week. Instead, they've been digging through 3-metre snow drifts to get to the groomer.

Rainbow Ski Area mountain manager Thomas Harry said the snow over the past week could set them up for the season.

"It's extraordinary for this time of year ... We are stoked."

The team was now aiming to open next Friday for the Matariki public holiday - two weeks earlier than expected.

The top of the south ski field, at an elevation of 1760 metres, had received more than 2m of snow in places, with an average of 1.5m on the main trails. But it had up to 3m drifts on groomer tracks and on the road.

Avalanche forecaster Matt Wilkinson said it was the largest snowfall he had seen in his time forecasting in the Nelson Lakes area.

Rainbow, at an elevation of 1760 metres, is covered in snow.
Rainbow, at an elevation of 1760 metres, is covered in snow.
But before this week's non-stop dumping, it had been a pretty standard start to the season, with a snowfall in May that was washed away by rain.

And Blenheim had almost a month's worth of rainfall in the first two weeks of June; 60 millimetres had fallen up to June 14, whereas the average for the month was 65mm.

MetService meteorologist Tui McInnes said the "almost-continuous barrage of lows and fronts" was due to a combination of an atmosphere prone to low pressure, southwesterly polar blasts, and warmer-than-normal waters.

That brought heavy rain, large hail stones, strong gusts, a few tornadoes, and more than 114,000 lightning strikes in the past week.

But snow had been falling for about six days straight at Rainbow Ski Area, in St Arnaud, 100 kilometres west of Blenheim.

The groomers have been out at Rainbow Ski Area instead of the sun guns.
The groomers have been out at Rainbow Ski Area instead of the sun guns.
As the snow kept coming, the ski resort team had to spend a night in the nearby Mt Robert lodge last weekend in case of avalanche.

"It has been non-stop for the small team on the field as they try and get the mountain safe and ready for the season," Harry said.

"We still have work to do, compliance items to complete, and staff to assemble."