Skiers could sniff the scent of a big season of snow after a good dump of the white stuff in the first week of May.
A wintry blast delivered around 15 centimetres of snow to the Australian Alps, with snow showers falling as low as 700 metres.
More snow arrived on the ground late last Thursday into Friday.
But is that pre-season snow a good indicator of a great season ahead?
Well, no. There is little-to-no correlation between the two.
As the CSIRO noted in a 2012 study, "the start of the snow season is not related to maximum temperature or precipitation in any month in the run-up to the snow season".
The BoM have also noted two of the best seasons on record – 1956 and 1981 – had no snow at all at the start of June.
However, there seems to be general agreement among meteorologists, including ABC Meteorologist Tom Saunders, that icy offerings from the sky will be pretty lean on the ground this season.
Why is there less snow?
The main drivers of a winter wonderland are strong cold fronts.
Or plenty of weaker ones to keep the snow coming. The best seasons have had plenty of systems pushing across southern Australia.
Unfortunately, the current climate set up isn't conducive to that.
El Niño
There's a likelihood that we're heading into an El Niño phase in Australia, which usually means less rain and snow in the eastern states.
Weatherzone, which analysed nearly 70 years of snow depth data at Spencers Creek in NSW, found the average depth drops by 36 per cent at that site in an El Niño year.
A BoM study found it was about 23 per cent lower overall under El Niño.
Whether El Niño will happen is uncertain.
The latest update from the BoM says the Pacific Ocean is neither El Niño or La Niño positive.
But it has declared an El Niño watch, suggesting that there's double the usual chance that El Niño will be declared sometime this year.
Positive IOD
The Indian Ocean dipole is another climate driver. In a positive phase, it means less cloudiness over Australia's north west.
That's where tropical moisture can flow from and feed down to the south east, usually in conjunction with cold fronts and troughs crossing the south.
You may have heard of the north-west cloud bands. So generally, it means less rainfall over southern Australia.
Right now, the IOD is neutral. But the BoM, analysing five different climate models, believes that a positive IOD is coming this winter.
It also cautions that "long range forecasts of IOD made at this time of the year have generally had low accuracy".
The worst outcome for the snow season would be an El Niño phase and positive IOD.
Positive SAM
The third, and possibly most important climate driver, is the Southern Annular Mode (SAM).
It's all about how far north or south the westerly winds that blow around the southern hemisphere move closer to or further away from the Antarctic.
The closer they are to southern Australia, the more likely that cold fronts will be able to ride along them, move north and affect rainfall over the nation's south.
Unfortunately, the phase of the SAM (positive, neutral or negative) changes every couple of weeks.
And that makes it difficult to predict snow more than 10 days ahead because of the reliance on cold fronts.
Is it all bad news?
Not all is lost … there's snowmaking!
It's especially important given Australia's fickle ski seasons.
In 2006, people were often skiing on grass, and the World Cup event at Mount Buller had to be cancelled following the worst snowfalls in 33 years.
But in 2014, there was so much of the white stuff it was labelled "snowmageddon".
Snowmaking began in Thredbo in the mid 80s. The man-made snow generally covers only beginner areas and low-intermediate slopes.
In seasons where there is less cloud to trap in the heat at night, there are lower minimum temperatures.
It's a case of clear skies, frosty nights and dry air as well, which allows water droplets from the snow-making cannons to freeze more quickly.
These are the ingredients for good snowmaking and can mean less snow melt.
Another issue is that winter rain can wash away the snow on the ground, whether natural or artificial.
So even though there might be more snow in a La Niño year, the likelihood of extra rain could wipe out that advantage.
What about the future?
Australia experiences a huge variability in the snow depth from year to year and unfortunately, there's a downward trend.
A CSIRO and Australian National University (ANU) report in 2003, updated in 2012, stated that the land area with at least 60 days of natural snow cover would shrink by 38 to 96 per cent by 2050.
And that would make some of the ski fields at lower elevations more marginal.
The report continued that "snow measurements at Victoria's Rocky Valley Dam [in Falls Creek] from 1954 to 2011 indicate a clear trend to lower maximum snow depths and an earlier end of the snow season".
"The earlier end of the snow season is clearly dependent on changes in temperature," the report said.
The bottom line
Snow seasons are notoriously difficult to predict.
And many meteorologists have been caught out predicting bumper seasons that fail to materialise.
But the indicators are that we're in for a leaner-than-usual season, with lower natural snow depths and possibly an earlier end to the season.
