| A trough of cold air following
yesterday's fronts moved across eastern Victoria and NSW overnight
and this morning bringing widespread though light snowfalls. A low pressure
system that developed in the cold air field off the NSW South Coast early
this morning then moved east, swinging winds southerly and drying out the
airstream. As a result, cloud and snowfalls cleared quickly to a fine, sunny
but particularly cold day across the two states.
In NSW, light snow fell across the
Southern and Central Tablelands as low as 600m, with Canberra Airport
reporting light snow in the early hours. Snow began falling soon after
midnight between Lithgow and Bathurst, and by dawn 5cm was
on the ground at Portland. The Great Western Highway was closed soon after
at Mt Lambie as trucks lost the battle with icy conditions. Several centimetres
of snow were also reported from Orange Airport, Blayney, Lithgow, Oberon,
and Blue Mountains villages from Mt Victoria to Wentworth Falls. In the
Snowy Mountains, skiing conditions were idyllic: the snow depth
at Charlotte Pass increased to 230cm with a powder cover maintained by
an almost complete calm and a temperature that didn't exceed -4.2 at Crackenback
all day. Despite mostly sunny conditions, top temperatures in NSW were
unusually low, with Peak Hill and Parkes only reaching 7°, 10 and 9 below
average respectively. Off the NSW southern and central coasts,
the cold air interacted with a 2° warmer than average sea surface, generating
heavy shower activity and at least one waterspout, observed east of Bondi
at 9.45am. Gale force winds touched the Illawarra and Hunter coasts briefly
late afternoon and early evening.
Victoria saw some lingering snowfalls
around the Alps, with Omeo, 685 metres above sea level, reporting
light snow overnight and this morning. At Falls Creek, snow depth
has broken through the 2m level, with 206cm measured this morning.
In Western Australia, a low pressure
system skirting the south coast accompanied by cool air aloft produced
an area of heavy showers and isolated thunderstorms that moved east along
the coast during the day. The coast and ranges south of Perth recorded
35 to 45mm of rain for the 24 hours to 9am.
|
as
new and corrected information becomes available, with updates underlined