Las Leñas base area on the morning of August 23rd, 2023. Captured by PowderQuest.
Las Leñas base area on the morning of August 23rd, 2023.
In the latest SnowBrains Forecast, we knew it was going to be a busy week for South America. A powerful storm was coming in with the possibility of many resorts seeing 3-6 feet of snow with some seeing as much as 9-12 feet or more.

The forecast may have materialized the most at Las Leñas Resort in Argentina when it reported over 11 feet of new snow at mid-mountain over the last four days. You can tell they were excited when they posted on their Instagram page earlier this week with the caption "This is how we are today August 22. It's the moment!"



Here is the Snow Report from Snow-Forecast showing the snowfall over the last few days. It adds up to over 146 inches, which is over 12 feet.

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© Snow-Forecast
Either way you measure it, it is a ridiculous amount of snow.

Although the access road to the resort was closed, Las Leñas is currently operating with a few lifts and runs open, while resort employees are working on avalanche mitigation. The good news is the new snow should allow them to open up more terrain that hasn't been opened yet this season.

This will certainly be a storm to remember. It is not uncommon for the area to have storms that drop three to five feet of snow, but a storm this big may only come every five years or so.

Another post from PowderQuest shows the mountain caked in snow after the storm subsided. Maybe it's time to head down to South America, it sure looks nice.