Winter Games NZ organisers say they are confident Coronet Peak will have the quality and quantity of snow needed to host world-class competitive games, despite spring-like temperatures in Queenstown.
Winter Games NZ chief executive Arthur Klap said this week more snow was desirable, but a week and a-half until the games began was a long time in snowsports, and snow was forecast for the coming week.
Last year was worse for snowfalls and weather than this year, but an excellent World Cup was still staged.
''With winter events and outdoor events, we have a number of contingencies that we can apply. The final contingency is to cancel and that is part and parcel of sport in the outdoors worldwide, but we will aim to try and get it through whatever,'' he said.
''Cardrona, the half-pipe and the slopestyle courses, are actually looking pretty good, so we could do with more snow there, but we think that's pretty much in hand.''
Coronet was of greater concern, but with other courses to cater for different levels of snow, there was room to move.
''There was that really good dump about five weeks ago that's given us a base that enables Cardrona to be in good shape and at least Coronet has enough of a base that hopefully we can add some more to.''
Winter Games organisers continually monitor snow conditions and study weather forecasts at competition venues to make decisions on the day.
A decision on whether they need to run with an alternative course would be made a week to 10 days out from the race.
There was a difference between having a whole mountain of superb snow for recreational skiers and snowboarders and a small zone fit for competitions, he said.
''Recreational skiers wouldn't go near the higher standard for alpine ski racing because it's hard, almost ice-type conditions.
"The courses are actually injected with water so that they freeze and that means they retain their condition a lot longer than the rest of the field.''
Coronet Peak Ski Area manager Ross Copland said the on-piste skiing was still good, despite the last good snowfall being on July 15.
''We have had some good snowmaking opportunities in between, which have allowed us to keep our trails topped up and skiing well with 'spring' conditions.
We made snow on the top half of the mountain last night,'' Mr Copland said yesterday.
The Remarkables ski area manager Ross Lawrence yesterday said while the weather might be unseasonably warmer in the valleys, at 1600m and above, it was still winter.
The Remarkables area was snow-covered and all trails and off-piste areas remained open.
