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Brief but super intense overnight snowfall
Anthony Sharwood, Friday May 26, 2023 - 09:12 AEST
Heavy snow fell in the Australian Alps overnight, with around 15 cm of fresh stuff on the ground in higher parts by Friday morning.
This was the scene on the road to Perisher in NSW after the cold front had passed leaving gloriously clear blue skies.
Image: If you've ever wondered where your national park entry fees go... Source: Steve Smith.
The snow clinging to the trees in the image above tells an interesting story. As the cold front passed through late on Thursday night and winds swung from northwesterlies to southwesterlies, the wind speed dropped appreciably.
You can see that illustrated below on the wind chart for Thredbo Top Station (probably mainland Australia's consistently windiest non-coastal weather station), where gusts exceeded 100 km/h on Thursday morning but dropped off markedly towards midnight.
Image: Observed mean wind speed and gusts at Thredbo Top Station during the 24 hours ending at 8am AEST on Friday, May 26.
As mentioned, the relatively gentle winds (by Aussie mountain standards) allowed snow to stick to trees. It also meant that wind-scoured areas where snow often fails to stick to the ground received a good pasting, as you can see on the Basin snow cam below, which is located very close to the Thredbo Top Station weather station.
Another obvious reason for the heavy accumulation that snow fell very heavily for a relatively brief period lasting about seven hours.
Perisher received 27 mm of precipitation between 8:30 pm and 4 am, which translated roughly to the 15 cm of snow mentioned above. The Victorian resorts saw similar totals with Hotham reporting 12 cm and Falls Creek 10 cm. Tasmania also saw snow.
Image: Not a deep cover at Falls Creek, but definitely a handy ground cooler on which to conduct snowmaking. Source: Falls Creek Facebook.
So what does this mean for the snow season ahead?
We now officially have a base in higher parts of the mountains, some of which should last through till the opening weekend commences on June 10.
Lower down, it's likely the snow won't last. The early signs for next week are for consistent westerly winds and marginal temps that could mean snow on the highest peaks but showers at lower elevations.
Ideally, you'd have still, sunny weather allowing the current base to consolidate with high potential for overnight snowmaking. That, unfortunately, is not quite what's in store for next week.
Image: Not quite enough snow to open the lifts at Perisher, but it won't be long. Source: Steve Smith.
But the glass-half-full perspective is that it snowed heavily last night, and we can cross our fingers and hope that enough of it sticks around to augment the snowmaking (and any further natural snowfalls) for when the season kicks off in two weeks.
- Weatherzone
© Weatherzone
2023
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