Whakapapa Ski Area is a ski area in New Zealand, at about 1,919 m. Its mapped area is about 3.8 km across, with 29 marked runs and 13 lifts (about 15 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 117 cm of snowfall a season, 2,129th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 19th in New Zealand. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2019 (235 cm), brought more than 10 times as much as the leanest, 2015 (23 cm). Snowfall days average −3.3 °C at mid-mountain, and its snow-quality score ranks 22nd of 25 in New Zealand.
Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear here once snow starts to fall. Until then, the long-run record comes first.
Elevation of the ski area’s centre point, taken from a digital elevation model. It is not the base-to-summit range.
We do not show a snow depth here. The weather model we use reports snow lying on the ground — it knows nothing about grooming or snowmaking, and it is not the base depth a ski area publishes. In Japan we can check our figures against 234 weather stations. Outside Japan there is nothing to check them against, so we do not print a number we have not verified. Snow report on the official site ↗
How much snow it gets
Measured by us across 3,069 ski areas by one identical method. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
The tick marks the median across every Japanese ski area we measure. All four bars run the same way — longer is better.
The quality score deliberately excludes how much snow falls — it uses temperature, frequency, rain and wind. Snowing a lot and snowing well are different things.
Compared with what is nearby
Within 50 km straight line. Measured the same way, so the ranks compare directly. Ski areas a few kilometres apart share a weather grid cell and can return the same figure.
| Ski area | Distance | Seasonal snowfall | World rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tukino Skifield | 4.8 km | 117 cm | 2129 |
| Tūroa Ski Area | 6.0 km | 117 cm | 2129 |
When it falls, and how winters differ
Month by month
Month by month, the most snow falls in August. September brings as much as July, or more. In amount, September brings 34 cm, about the same as the median of 32 cm.
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 117 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2015 with 23 cm; the biggest was 2019 with 235 cm (10.2 times as much).
Snowfall each winter (June–September total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.
Runs and lifts
Counted from the runs and lifts drawn on OpenStreetMap, within the boundary of the ski area. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Run map
The shape of the mountain
Which way the slopes face
85% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. Those slopes get the least sun, so the snow lasts longer.
By difficulty
Lift types
- T-bar4
- Chairlift4
- Magic carpet4
- Gondola1
See past trail maps on Skimap.org ↗
Source: OpenSkiMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0). How finely ski areas are drawn varies by region, so treat the counts as indicative. Vertical is the difference between the highest and lowest points of the mapped runs and lifts.
Live Cameras
This ski area does not put a camera on its own slopes. What follows are nearby cameras, not the pistes themselves.
Footage remains the copyright of each operator. JAPANSNOWLINE neither stores nor redistributes it.
Some cameras here are provided by Windy.com. Footage plays in Windy’s own player; we do not store it. Windy.com
Map
Where it sits relative to nearby resorts. For a piste map, see the official site.
Official piste map ↗More places to look
Guides covering New Zealand
- Where to Ski in July and August: Argentina Has the Deepest Snow of Any Country on Earth, and Everyone Books New Zealand Argentina's median ski area gets 348 cm a season — more than Japan's 249 cm, and the highest median of any country we measure with ten or more ski areas. New Zealand's median is 144 cm. The English-language northern-summer ski trip points at the wrong hemisphere's end.
- Where Is the Driest Snow in the Southern Hemisphere? We extended our snow-quality measurement to all 59 ski areas below the equator. The high Andes are drier than most of Japan. New Zealand and Australia get rain on a third of winter days. And the southern hemisphere's snowiest resorts are mostly not its best ones.
Updated: 8 Oct 2026, 00:52