Thredbo, Perisher and Mount Hotham all recorded falls, along with Kunanyi/Mount Wellington in Tasmania
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Snow blanketed parts of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania across the weekend as an unseasonal cold blast whipped through Australia’s south-east, but forecasters say warm temperatures and thunderstorms are on the way.
Thredbo, Perisher and Mount Hotham all recorded falls on Saturday and Sunday, while snow also fell on Kunanyi/Mount Wellington in Hobart.
The snow had been forecast by the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) and, though uncommon, it is not entirely unusual – many of the places hit by snow in the past 24 hours also recorded a fall in November 2022.
The cold weather isn’t expected to linger for long.
Tristan Sumarna, a meteorologist at the BoM, said lower temperatures were expected to dissipate from Tuesday, with parts of Sydney set for temperatures in the mid-20s, even the low 30s, by the end of the week.
That change will bring more of a “storm-like pattern” typical of springtime in NSW, Sumarna told ABC Radio Sydney.
Tasmania and Victoria were both set to have fine weather on Monday, with Melbourne set to hit the low 20s by lunchtime and Hobart a top of 19.
The weekend falls brought a rush of posts on social media from those puzzled by the unseasonal spring weather.
“You will not believe this, it’s springtime in Australia, in November, and it’s snowing,” Madeleine McVie, a retail manager at Thredbo, posted on Instagram on Saturday afternoon.
“Like, not just a little bit. It’s fully snowing.”
McVie posted another clip on Sunday morning of her riding empty chairlifts through the park as the snow continued to fall.
Kingston Crows cricket club in Tasmania posted an image of the Kingston Beach Oval on Saturday that showed it coated in hailstones.
The BoM said a weather system, filled with cold air moving north from towards Antarctica, had caused the wintery chill with apparent temperatures much cooler than forecast maximums. South-westerly winds were also causing the apparent or “feels like” temperature to be lower.
At midday on Sunday, Adelaide, Melbourne, Hobart, Canberra and Sydney all had temperatures that felt cooler than 13C.
Brisbane, Perth and Darwin, meanwhile, were all enjoying temperatures in the 20s or 30s at the weekend.
It may be one of the last cold snaps of the year – the BoM, as well as the UN and other bodies, have warned of the likely effects of a “jaw dropping” supercharged El Niño.
The climate crisis, caused by pollution from fossil fuels, is already supercharging extreme weather and killing people. The El Niño is expected to ratchet up the effects even further and has already begun to affect regions across the planet as weather patterns are altered.
The southern hemisphere summer is predicted to be hotter and drier as a result of the huge El Niño, meaning greater wildfire risk and droughts in Australia and southern Africa.
