The cold snap that hit southeast Australia on the weekend left a light dusting of a few centimetres of snow on the Snowy Mountains of NSW and the Victorian Alps.

Early May snow almost always melts before the official season start on the June long weekend (this year it's Saturday June 12). Indeed last weekend's snow has pretty much already gone as mild easterly winds have moved over the region, with rain expected later this week.

But several large patches of snow on the Front Valley ski slopes of Perisher in NSW are persisting and may even survive the imminent rain. That's because snowmaking operations kicked off late last week.

• Snowmaking takes place when a mixture of water and compressed air are sprayed out over the ski slopes via several different types of snow guns.
• To crank up the guns, you need a dryish atmosphere and temps which are below zero – ideally -2°C or lower.
• Perisher has had sub-zero minimums for all but two of the 10 nights in May 2022 so far.
• Last Thursday night, ahead of a low of -3.1°C on Friday morning, resort staff made their first snow of the year.

As mentioned, natural snow then fell on the weekend. This was the snow stake at mid-Perisher at an altitude of about 1850m on Sunday morning.

Image: The stakes are high when it comes to snowfalls at our resorts in winter. Source: Perisher.

Also as mentioned, that snow is pretty much all gone now. The only snow on the slopes now is the leftovers of the snowmaking efforts from recent nights.

Snowmaking covers no more than about 5-10% of terrain at our largest ski resorts. That's still enough to get a few lifts spinning for the long weekend if natural snow doesn't arrive.

Snowmaking usually starts in earnest a week or two before the season at most resorts, although Perisher often goes earlier. We've asked Perisher people whether last Thursday night was the earliest they've started.

We haven't heard back yet but we'll update this story if we do, as it is unclear at this stage whether this was a pre-season system test or a genuine attempt to start laying down a base on high-traffic runs.

NOT ALL SNOWMAKING IS ALIKE. CHECK OUT OUR STORY FROM LAST YEAR ABOUT A NEW TYPE OF CRUSHED ICE "SNOWMAKING" WHICH DOES A SIMILAR JOB, AND WHICH CAN OPERATE IN TEMPS WELL ABOVE ZERO!