Ruapehu Weather

Page Updated: For 2010 Season

Ruapehu Weather - Get your bluebird predictions from Powderhound. Powderhound Daily updates During the winter months Our daily update on our home page gives you our latest weather forecast and predictions for Mount Ruapehu. Powderhound is not always right but we have developed a reputation for predicting the primo days. Ruapehu weather is renowned for its unpredictability and to be straight we also get it wrong too. But we reckon we a right more often than most. How do we do it? We have skied Ruapehu hundreds of times and by combining our experience with weather information we aim to pick the blue bird days for all you ski and snowboard heads who like us hate bad conditions. In 2008 Turoa cranked with a 5m base as the pic below. Lots of bad weather though. 2009 the snow was less plentyful and the southeasterly caused a lot of variable weather but some real nice windows came through pretty consistently. Looks like we are set for same pattern again in 2010. We prefer a southwest pattern but at least the SE's are nice and cold. General info See down the bottom of the page for some general comments on the Ruapehu weather   Bluebird days are what skiing Mount Ruapehu are all about. Pull up in the carpark and get sore legs!

Powderhound Icons

Our daily update and at places around our site including ski vote use our new Powderhound icons.

Here is an explanation of what they stand for.

	Blizzardville Our favourite weather condition.		Rain It sucks.
	The popsicle in the sky. This is symbolic of the occasions when the mountain really freezes and is icey everywhere.		Happy Powderhound. Lots of reasons to use this one.
	Crusty the clown. Ruapehu is renowned for variable icey crust at times. Powderhounds get pretty angry and tend to rip the clown up.		Howling - Blue bird day. Its going to be or is an awesome day. Keep your eyes peeled for this one.
	Neutral hound Neither here no there. A useful icon as sometimes we just are not sure.		Icey conditions Ruapehu can have a bit of ice at times. Ok quite often.
	Powderwatch This is our favourite Icon.		Not good There unfortunately can be the odd use of this guy.
	Fester the Norwester Like an annoying uncle warm and sometimes wet Fester the norwester can make Powderhounds pretty unhappy. Fog, bad viz, wet misty etc. But they are often followed by snow		Southerly heaven On the other hand southerlies bring snow and Powderhounds love them. They also precede fine weather.
	The goat A bad attempt by our designer at howling, never used.	?	contact us to suggest an icon we may add it to the suite.

General Commentary on Ruapehu Weather

What about the weather when we want to go?

Mount Ruapehu is renowned for it's sometimes violent and unpredictable weather. You will often find the weather report is different from the way its turns out to be. We don't have any hard data on this but instinctively we would say the weather reports are only right about 40-60% of the time. So here is some advice from us based on our numerous experiences with the skiing and riding the volcano.

Generally

If there is a Southerly flow over the Tongariro National park its time to pack your bags. Often the best conditions follow right behind the storm cycle. On more than one occasion we have arrived at the mountain during heavy snowfalls only to have the weather clear literally as we parked. Ruapehu weather!

If there is a northwest pattern blowing look at the weather maps and work out how far into the cycle the northwest weather is. If it has just arrived you are usually going to soon if its been going for a while you may arrive as the Southerly arrives and ultimately the good weather. That said though a couple of times a season there will be a prolonged southerly storm so take your goggles and yeti uniforms for these ones, it can be very cold.

Mountain on Hold
When the mountain is on hold due to wind be patient sometimes and indeed often it will relent even if it still blowing down at Ohakune/National park level. We always hang around to find out.

Weekends
Weekends are problematic at Mount Ruapehu as during most of the season you need to book in advance to get the accommodation you are after. So really you are taking a punt on the weather. Bear in mind our general comments above or plan some other back up activities such as tramping, golf, mountain biking and just enjoy being out of town and in the mountains. Mount Ruapehu has plenty of short walks on offer that you can explore. The DOC offices can help you find them. Oh and there is always the apres ski without the apres.

Long trips
Similar advice to the weekends except we would recommend you leave booking these as late as possible then you can pick a period of good weather to go in. Be warned people have been unable to ski and ride for whole weeks at a time on some albeit rare occasions.

Spot the window

If you are keen to ski the good weather, can go weekdays. and like nice conditions check out our home page throughout the season we predict the windows. We normally only ski and ride good weather and snow so we get it right on a better than average basis. May the Ruapehu weather be in your favour!