Afriski snow report
One groomed kilometre0.6 mi of groomed piste and about 190 m623 ft of vertical on surface lifts, with 20 snow machines doing essentially all of the work: a single night of snowmaking lays 20 cm7.9 in along a kilometre0.6 mi of slope. Being the only operating ski resort in Africa, at over 3,000 m9,843 ft in the Mountain Kingdom, is the reason to come. The terrain is 67% easy, 33% intermediate and 0% difficult.
Lesotho · Southern Hemisphere · live from the weather model at 3030–3222 m9941–10571 ft
Imperial when your device is on a US time zone, metric otherwise, until you choose.
Conditions right now
Read at summit elevation the moment you opened this page.
Hourly windows, accumulation ranges, confidence and travel flags, or the transparent 0–100 Ski Meter score.
Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), adapted for display. Elevations are approximate published figures; forecasts are model estimates, not guarantees.
The mountain right now
The live freezing level drawn on the elevation profile. Above the snow line, precipitation falls and stays as snow.
Terrain shape is schematic; elevations are the resort's approximate published figures.
Ten seasons of snow at Afriski
Daily snow depth at this destination's model grid cell, read as ten complete seasons to 31 August 2026. Natural snow only.
In none of the ten seasons did the depth at this cell reach 30 cm12 in and hold it for a fortnight. The curve below is what the model did record. This is natural snow only: it says nothing about the snow this resort makes, and nothing about terrain higher than the cell.
The band spans the shallowest and the deepest of the ten seasons on each day, and the line runs through the median. It reaches 38 cm15 in, the deepest single day in the record. The dashed line is the 30 cm12 in threshold, and the shaded column is the week Afriski traditionally opens, 1 to 7 June.
The index asks a different question of the same ten seasons: in the week this mountain traditionally opens, had 30 cm12 in arrived? All 53 destinations are scored side by side, on one rule.
How the start date is found. For each season this takes the longest unbroken run of days at 30 cm (12 in) or more, and counts it only when that run lasted at least 14 days, because a week of early snow that melts out is not a season starting.
What the model cell is. The reanalysis gives this destination one grid square of roughly 9 km5.6 mi and one elevation for it, being the average of all the terrain inside it. Here that is 3079 m10102 ft, against a resort base of 3030 m9941 ft and a summit of 3222 m10571 ft. Compare the cell against those two before you read any number here as a verdict on the mountain. A reanalysis is a model, not a measurement: it can be too smooth over complex terrain, and it can miss a local storm.
Natural snow only. The model knows about weather. It does not know about snow cannons, and no snowmaking is modelled anywhere. The opening week is traditional, not contractual: it is the window this mountain has historically opened in, not a promise. Daily values run to 31 August 2026.
Take the data. Both tables are free to use and free to republish under CC BY 4.0: one row per destination, and one row per destination per season. Both are in centimetres and metres, whichever units this page shows.
Why it snows here
At 28.8°S this exists only because of altitude: above 3,000 m9,843 ft on the Maluti plateau, nights fall reliably below freezing while the days stay warm. Snow arrives episodically rather than on a storm track, and a 14-year study of the Lesotho Highlands counts an average of 11.5 snowfalls a year across the whole region, 68% of them lasting under five days.
Reading Afriski like a forecaster
The number that matters most at Afriski is the difference between the base (3030 m9941 ft) and the summit (3222 m10571 ft): when the freezing level sits between the two, the mountain is split into rain or wet snow below and dry snow above. The Ski Meter reads the model at both elevations and scores the day with every point accounted for; the full report adds hourly timing, accumulation ranges and confidence tags so you can decide when to travel, not just whether.