New Zealand

Rainbow Ski Area

Off season

No snow yet. Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear once snow is on the ground or forecast.

Typical snowfall
139cm

A weather-model figure, worked out the same way for every ski area, and lower than what actually falls. Use it to compare ski areas, not against the resort’s own totals. How we measure →

Elevation
1,541–1,744 m
Across
1.7 km

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.

Rainbow Ski Area, in New Zealand, runs from 1,541 m at the base to 1,744 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 1.7 km across, with 10 marked runs and 5 lifts (about 6.3 km of piste in all).

Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 139 cm of snowfall a season, 1,816th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 16th in New Zealand. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2022 (293 cm), brought more than 19 times as much as the leanest, 2015 (15 cm). Snowfall days average −1.9°C at mid-mountain, close to freezing, so the snow is often heavy, and its snow-quality score ranks 24th of 25 in New Zealand.

How much snow it gets

Modelled from weather data the same way at all 3,069 ski areas we cover. These are not the resort’s own published figures.

Seasonal snowfall
139cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
15cm
The middle winter of the 12: 142 cm. The best: 293 cm.
World rank
1816
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
16
of 26 in New Zealand
Elevation rank
11
Highest to lowest, of 26 in New Zealand. The centre point sits at 1,695 m, 76 m above the national median.
Quality rank
24
of 25 in New Zealand
Temp when snowing
−1.9°C
Japanese median: −3.6°C
Rain days
32%
Japanese median: 16%
Days over 5 cm
3%
Japanese median: 15%
Wind when snowing
19km/h
Average daily peak, 10 m above ground across a model grid cell; not the wind on ridges or lift tops
Dryness 28
Frequency 9
Freedom from rain 35
Calm when snowing (model grid) 96

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 leaves out how much snow falls (it uses temperature, frequency, rain and wind).

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.

Marked runs
10
Run length
6.3km
Lifts
5
Vertical
203m
Top 1,744 m · base 1,541 m

Run map

NoviceEasyIntermediateOther Lift
North is up. Runs are coloured by difficulty; black lines are lifts.
Run map

Drag to move around, and use + and − to zoom. On a phone, swipe to move and pinch to zoom in further.

Slope shape, difficulty and lift types

The shape of the mountain

Longest run on the map1.8 km
Steepest pitch26°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs9°

Which way the slopes face

North 1%
East 22%
South 71%
West 6%

Only 23% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. The most common direction is south (71%).

By difficulty

Novice 1 · 0.1 km
Easy 2 · 1.5 km
Intermediate 3 · 3.5 km
Other 4 · 1.2 km

Lift types

  • Rope tow3
  • T-bar1
  • Platter1

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.

When it falls, and how winters differ

Month by month

The most snow falls in July. September brings 97% of July’s snowfall. That is a gentler fall than the median for ski areas in New Zealand (79%). In amount, September brings 33 cm, about the same as the median of 32 cm.

27cm
Jun
34cm
Jul
31cm
Aug
33cm
Sep
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters

Winter by winter

Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 139 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2015 with 15 cm; the biggest was 2022 with 293 cm (19.5 times as much). For 54% of the 26 ski areas in New Zealand the leanest winter was 2016; here it was a different one.

15
17
204
131
208
153
193
293
90
99
89
173
’15’16’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25’26

Snowfall each winter (June–September total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.

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

The weather map, and where it sits among nearby ski areas.

Other booking sites: Booking.com ↗ · Agoda ↗

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