New Zealand’s Tūroa ski area is usually a white wonderland at this time of year, its deep snowpack supporting its famed spring skiing.

This season, it’s largely a barren moonscape, with tiny patches of snow poking out between vast fields of jagged volcanic boulders.

The ski area was forced to close for the season this week, three weeks earlier than planned.

Rain repeatedly washed away the snow, and the ski area’s 50 snowmaking machines proved no match against balmy temperatures.

The two ski areas, which are among New Zealand’s largest, are owned by the same company and located on opposite sides of Mount Ruapehu. Should they be forced to close permanently, it would leave North Island, where more than three-quarters of the nation’s 5 million people live, without any major ski areas.

The sports have long been important for attracting foreign tourist dollars to New Zealand and form part of the nation’s identity as an outdoor adventure destination.

At Tūroa this season, workers in snow-grooming machines spent thousands of hours pushing what snow there was onto trails, allowing expert skiers and snowboarders to take the chairlifts to the top of the ski area for limited runs.

Asia Pacific is home to some of the world’s most beloved travel destinations, from the natural beauty of Bali to the urban buzz of Singapore. These dreamy vacation hotspots — teamed with the region’s business power — secured Asia Pacific the title of world’s largest travel region for much of the past decade.

But with destinations like China and Japan comparatively slow to drop Covid entry restrictions, air travel in Asia Pacific remains low compared to the region’s pre-pandemic levels.

And a new report from international travel industry analysts the Centre for Aviation (CAPA) predicts Asia Pacific will no longer be the world’s largest travel region by the end of 2022, ceding the title to Europe.

Where once Asian Pacific air traffic accounted for more than a third of all global passenger journeys, aviation in the region remains down by 45% compared to pre-pandemic levels, according to CAPA.

Meanwhile, CAPA suggests European air travel has recovered to roughly 85% of pre-pandemic levels, even accounting for the continued impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In 2019, 3.38 billion passengers transited through Asia Pacific airports. In contrast, CAPA reports that current predictions from ACI Asia-Pacific — an industry organization that represents airports in the region — suggest 1.84 billion passengers will have passed through Asia Pacific travel hubs by the end of 2022.

A key factor in this slow recovery is China’s “zero-Covid” border policy and Japan’s slow relaxation of travel restrictions, at least according to ACI Asia-Pacific and CAPA. Japan is set to officially reopen to tourists on October 11.

“What happens there has an outsized impact on the rest of the region,” says CAPA of China and Japan, pointing out they’re two of the region’s top travel markets.

CAPA reports that most travel in Asia Pacific destinations remains at 50% or more below 2019 levels, with only a couple of exceptions, such as India, which is only 11% below its 2019 figure.

Domestic travel in Asia Pacific is recovering faster than international travel, notes CAPA — domestic travel within China, for example, is only down 5.4% compared to 2019 levels.

All in all, CAPA predicts Asia Pacific won’t see a full return to pre-pandemic travel figures until the end of 2023 or early 2024.

“Even then, recovery is dependent on countries opening their borders and ending lingering travel restrictions, as well as the wider economic and epidemiological situations,” reads the report.

CAPA is arguing for “harmonization of international travel rules” and “political commitments towards openness and freedom of movement” as well as a continued vaccination drive, to aid travel recovery.

Sydney recorded its wettest year in 164 years as authorities braced for major floods in Australia’s east on Thursday, with more heavy downpours expected to fall over the next three days.

With almost three months of 2022 still to go, Australia’s largest city has recorded 2,200 mm of rain in a year for the first time since records began in 1858.

By Thursday afternoon, Sydney had received about 2,213 mm (87 inches) of rainfall for the year, surpassing the previous record of 2,194 mm set in 1950, official data showed.

More than 58 mm fell over five hours since 9am local time (2200 GMT, Wednesday), the Bureau of Meteorology’s (BoM) live data showed.

More downpours are forecast for the rest of 2022, as Australia’s east coast remains in the grip of a rare third straight year of the La Nina weather phenomenon.

During the past two years, floods have struck Sydney’s suburbs three times, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.

With a wild weather system expected to dump heavy rains through the weekend across a wide swathe of Australia’s east, authorities warned Sydney residents to watch out for flash flooding and stay away from flooded roads.

Many dams and rivers are already at full capacity. The New South Wales state government has committed to raising the height of the wall at Sydney’s Warragamba Dam, which supplies 80% of the city’s water, to help prevent future floods.

A US astronaut has become the first Native American woman in space following a NASA launch.

Marine Colonel Nicole Mann, 45, is one of four astronauts who blasted off from Florida at midday bound for the International Space Station (ISS).

The SpaceX Falcon rocket put them on a path to catch the orbiting outpost in about 29 hours’ time.

Col Mann told the BBC that she hoped the mission would inspire future generations of Native Americans.

“[I hope it] will inspire young Native American children to follow their dreams and realise that some of those barriers that are there or used to be there are being broken down,” she said.

“Anytime we are able to do something that is a first, or wasn’t done in the past, it’s so important,” she added. “They have these opportunities.”

A registered member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, Col Mann has extensive experience flying a variety of aircraft for the US Marine Corps. She has been awarded six medals for her service and has deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tribes have long reported societal discrimination resulting in economic hardship and underfunding of their schools. In 2017, only 27% of Native Americans attained an associate degree or higher compared to 54% of white students, according to the US National Centre for Education Statistics.

An organisation has been appointed to carry out research on the long-term future of the Mourne Mountains.

The Department of Finance has appointed The James Hutton Institute from Scotland to carry out the work over the next three months.

They plan to host sessions to gather information from various groups who live or work on the mountains.

The research will focus on proposals to protect and enhance the area.

“Everyone recognises that it is a unique asset here in Ireland and it needs to be protected,” said Finance Minister Conor Murphy.

“But also there’s a community who lives here, there’s a community that farms here, there’s a community that does business here. And we need all of those various aspects together to develop a plan which everyone agrees on which is in the best interests of this beautiful area”.

The researchers will work with the department’s innovation lab.