This week's cold southerly blast left a dusting of snow on Snowmaking at Coronet Peak, the Remarkables and Mount Hutt has now started in earnest.

Mount Hutt mountain manager Ross Lawrence said the snowmaking team was 'stoked' to get under way.

"The snowmakers are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week from now on to take advantage of the cooler weather in the forecast," he said.

Lower temperatures have enabled snowcannons at Mount Hutt to work all of Tuesday evening as the air and humidity levels fell below -3.5 C.

Over at Coronet Peak, there are over fifty snowguns of which 47 were working on Tuesday, putting through more than 1000 gallons of water a minute. .

Coronet Peak and Mount Hutt are scheduled to open for the 2001 season in early June.