Ruapehu's winter wonderland: NZ's natural ice palace

Ruapehu has transformed into a winter wonderland with more snow falling at Turoa and Whakapapa overnight.

Staff have been working on de-icing a number of the chairlifts and buildings, including the Giant Cafe at Turoa which transformed into an ice palace overnight.

Ruapehu has been hit by multiple storms and blizzards over the last few months, bringing with it a heavy dumping of snow.

"The current snow cycle continues to provide fresh snowfall on the upper mountain which is epic, however with that comes the challenge of ice," according to a post on Mt Ruapehu's Facebook page.

Cloudy morning up here on the Maunga at present with the weather slowly starting to clear. 🏔 The current snow cycle...

Posted by Mt Ruapehu, Whakapapa & Tūroa Ski Areas on Monday, 26 August 2019

At Turoa, the Alpine Meadow, Parklane and Wintergarden chairlifts are open for skiing and riding. The Movenpick lift opened a bit later due to de-icing, while Giant is closed for the day due to a mechanical issue discovered during de-icing.

The Nga Wai Heke and the High Noon are closed today as they require clear weather to complete de-icing and avalanche control work.

In the past week there's been 26cm of snowfall on the upper mountain and 14cm on the lower mountain, according to Ruapehu Alpine Lifts website.

Strong winds have kept most of Whakapapa closed today, with only Happy Valley open for skiing, sledding and riding.

This side has collected 34cm of snowfall on the upper mountain in the past week and 13cm on the lower mountain.

However the forecast is looking up for the weekend, with the weather set to improve over the next few days and sunny and cloudy conditions expected.

MetService shift meteorologist Andrew James said a cold overnight brought a little bit of snow.

"There will be some cloud and showers around at the lower levels but above 1700m both fields were looking fine for tomorrow," he said.

"Looking forward we've got a ridge of high pressure coming in over the Tasman sea which hangs around for a couple of days."

The forecast for the next few days is promising until Thursday. However, another ridge was due to push through on Friday

"With that ridge coming on it's looking like both weekend days will be pretty decent."

The Stoked Podcast recently put together a comprehensive update of snow conditions from around the country.