Topic: Southeast Australia Cold and Snow and ECL 18 to 21 June 2007

[Michael Bath]

Yet another cold pool is advancing over Victoria today and should result in a widespread outbreak of cold weather and snow showers along the tablelands. It's certainly not as impressive as earlier model runs indicated but still interesting. BoM have forecast snow below 900m Tuesday and Wednesday along the Central and Northern Tablelands.

An ECL is tipped to re-form just off the Central NSW coast, assisting by the trough and weak low persisting in the North Tasman Sea.

Another very strong high in the Bight will ensure the cold air heads northwards.

GFS is certainly targeting the Northern Tablelands early Wed but it doesn't look good for big snow accumulations.

Michael

[SnowMac]

Hi Michael and all

Yes yet another cold pool for the Northern Tablelands and Granite belt area. I agree it has somewhat
deminished in the earlier model runs. Will be interesting to see the next model runs.
With GFS forecasting a snow level to 800 metres, if plenty of moisture was available, the snowfall
would be widespread with snow/ sleet in the town of Stanthorpe.

[nmoir]

I am going to go to the Oberon neck of the woods again tomorrow arvo then come back for tomorrow night to see how strong this low develops and what it does to sydney overnight tues , wed morning.
BOM have forcast GAle force winds but i one of their forcasters on ABC radio said he thought could get storm force.

[Jimmy Deguara]

Yes it seems like snow is probable. If it snows down to lower levels then I would head up - not interested in a drive to Shooters Hill myself. I'll wait for he pictures:)

As to the East Coast Low, as I told others and have alerted on here - they are one day wonders and will drag things away from us clearing things. I wished it had remained as an upper level low.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Michael Bath]

At least you are getting the one day wonder part. Lovely westerlies up here again lol. Still only about 20mm for the month.

I see some falls over the 50mm mark along the Hunter coast already.

The coldest pool of air is forecast to affect the Northern Tablelands late today. 850 hPa temps are a few degrees cooler than the previous event so it will be interesting to see how much snow can accumulate in the Barrington Tops and northwards through Armidale, Guyra etc. 700 hPa moisture is not as favourable but seems to be quite reasonable for a couple of hours early am Wednesday. Maybe a few cm will accumulate by sunrise.

Have to watch the trajectory of the cold pool and unstable air sitting over central southern NSW.

[Jeff Brislane]

Tonight looks quite good for snow over the Northern Tablelands. Are you heading up again MB? I don't like this system though for snow out west of Sydney. The 850 level is staying too warm thanks to the developing surface low. The coldest 850 air went across the Southern Tablelands this morning and although it snowed at Cooma you can see the warming trend as the morning wore on. Difference between 1000m at Cooma and 1000m at Katoomba was 5c.

I quite like the look of the forecast though for Thursday. We have an upper trough crossing the CT's from early morning, throughout the day with 700mb R/H levels hitting 90% around lunchtime and staying above 75% for a few hours more. 850 temps look set to drop to -2 and maybe even -3 to -4 briefly so for snow I might be going out on Thursday.

This ECL though is very impressive on the forecast. So far it looks like dropping to 988mb at sea level very rapidly and that should produce wind gust's to 120km/h. Not looking too good for the Illawarra and we should see a lot of house damage from this low unfortunately.

Jeff.

[Michael Bath]

Hi Jeff - no I can't go this time though Rodney may be.

Quite amazing to see so much cloud spreading into the top part of the country from the northwest at present. Showers showing up around Darwin too.

[Jimmy Deguara]

Michael,

My comments are in response to so many people prefering these east coast lows. Why?

I haven't checked to see what is happening later this week. Looks like Jeff is onto something for Thursday - I'll check it out.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Jeff Brislane]

Check out the obs for Mt Baw Baw in Victoria. They've had 80mm from this system and all of it at around 0 degrees or less! The snowcam though doesn't show a remarkable change in snow depth allthough it's not in a very good position for that. They must have at least 40cm on the ground there by now though.

Jeff.

[Jeff Brislane]

I think we could all be in for a surprise tonight. I'm not so sure that the low is centering were the boM had forcast it. Currently temps over the Blue Mountains and CT's are lower than I expected from the forcast and if good precip gets up there we could see snow tonight and maybe a fair bit of it. I think the low might be a little further east than forcast but then again it could still get closer.

The temp over the snowy is quite warm atm which could indicate that the warmer 850mb air has stayed further south. That would mean that the upper low will pass more over the Central Ranges than the Northern Ranges.

The temp at Mt Boyce was hovering around 1c and the radar is indicating that precip is starting to fall up there. Anyway we'll see how it panned out in the morning.

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi Jeff,

My judgement based on GFS earlier was that the Central Tablelands would get snow later particularly tonight. Road closure was one of the factors stopping me from going - they apparently have closed the roads over the mountains.

Redards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Michael Bath]

Rodney did go up to the tablelands and stayed at Ben Lomond where a few snow showers fell from Deepwater and south, but not much. He's now at Guyra where there is a 1cm cover and it's -2.5 degrees with frozen drizzle and the occasional snow flake. Overcast conditions.

[SnowMac]

Hey Michael !!!
I couldnt see any prep when i woke this morning so i assumed there was no snow. This is pretty amazing ig guess the extra elevated areas were enough for orgraphyic uplift. The snow would be nice and dry. Could be more snow drizzle later this morning maybe    Cool Deepwater is around 979metres !! the terrain from there is basically increasing in hight from there on

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi,

Great to hear about the snowfalls and I would assume we will see some impressive snow pictures from Nick Moir who was supposed to head up yesterday to Shooters Hill.

The break in the cloud to our west despite the rain falling was there for a nice sunset. Instead, I just headed out onto the balcony for a nice rainbow at sunset:



More pictures here:

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2007/jd20070619.html

Although not too rare this was a bright full rainbow - one reason to have a super wide angle lens

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Jeff Brislane]

Nice rainbow Jimmy! You'd have to be in the right place at the right time for that one I guess.

8cm of snow was reported at Wentworth Falls from last night allthough I don't know how acurate that report was. Katoomba had more rain than Mt Boyce so it could be likely.

Thursday is still looking good for a daytime snow event on the Central Tablelands as long as there is reasonable moisture levels with the upper trough. We'll see how it pans out today but it could be worth a sicky, hint hint, nudge nudge. ;-)

Jeff.