An unusually cold storm in southern Australia has dumped a blanket of snow on Mt Lofty near Adelaide, the first October snowfall in more than a century.
Hallett in the state’s mid-north also woke to a blanket of white.
Andrew Watson from the Bureau of Meteorology said the rare weather event was caused by a mass of icy air from the Antarctic.
Snow also whitened the ground along the southern Flinders ranges, east and north of Adelaide, South Australia, the Australian ABC News website said.
Images published Thursday showed snow-covered ground at Hallett, in an upland valley north of Adelaide. Posted videos showed falling snow in the hills east of Adelaide.
The mercury in Adelaide dropped to 4.9C, one of the lowest October minimum temperatures on record, and fell as low as 0.4C at Mount Lofty.
Normal low temperature in Adelaide is about 50 degrees, whereas the typical high is in the lower 70s.
Seasons in the Southern Hemisphere are the opposite of those in the north, so October is a spring month in Australia.
One South Australia resident, from Booleroo Centre, said she had never seen October snow in her half century of living in the area.
Locals at Hallett in the mid-north of the state, around Crafers, Mount Lofty, Lobethal and Belair in the Adelaide hills, Sevenhill in the Clare Valley and Mount Remarkable in the lower Flinders Ranges have been surprised by the snowfalls.
Hey Oz. How’s that global warmin’ workin’ for ya?
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/andrews/australia-storm-gives-rare-snow/124123
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/once-in-century-october-snow-across-sa/22638
Once-in-century October snow across SA
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-11/snow-falls-across-sa/4306702?section=sa
Thanks to Erwin Chvojan, Oz Steamer, Zoltan Galambos, John Haysman, Denis Ballam, David Krueger, Stephan, Gareth, Miles and Danielle for these links
Yahoo downplayed the snowfall, with their headline reading: “Unseasonal snow falls in South Australia.”
“Unseasonal”?
The first snowfall in more than 100 years, and they call it “unseasonal”?
http://au.news.yahoo.com/sa/latest/a/-/latest/15092145/unseasonal-snow-falls-in-south-australia/
21 Responses to First snow in October in Australia in more than 100 years
SUNSPOTS
16 June - 2 sunspots
Credit: landscheidt.infoGood news! A publisher in Italy has now translated Not by Fire but by Ice into Italian.
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Warmer than today during most of
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What condition was Oz in during the LIA?
Most likely glaciation free with possible exception of parts of Tasmania
Sorry – misread question – during LIA Australia was a little cooler than now –
during major ice age -
Most likely glaciation free with possible exception of parts of Tasmania
Will snow be a thing of the past?
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/welsh-prime-ministers-are-a-thing-of-the-past-in-australia/
The sudden drop in temperature is due to the jet stream funneling cold air directly off Antarctica. Jet streams in both hemispheres have been responsible for most of the cold weather in the past 3-4 years and is thought to be a side effect of the greatly reduced solar UV reading we are experiencing during what might become the next solar grand minimum.
http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/270
I think Piers Corbyn might agree somewhat with that
There has only been two other October days in Adelade as cold since 1977. One in 2005 and the other in 2003. Yep must be global warming!
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I live in Brisbane, Australia, and to my surprize that little phraze again apeared, Cold Snap. I just hope it’s not like the one that hit Europe in January this year or we all could be doing impressions of the extinct Wooly Mammoth
I live on the New South Wales Southern Highlands. It does get cold here during winter. Today we had snow and in some areas of the state there was very heavy snow. We had a short flurry in October 2010. However, apart from that, having lived here for 32 years, I have never seen snow in October and have only once seen it in September many years ago.
The weather conditions in the southern hemisphere are a lot different than in the northern hemisphere because most of the world’s oceans are in the southern hemisphere and these provide a massive heat sink for the southern hemisphere.
The first fleet of settlers from the UK arrived in Sydney in 1788. So there aren’t a lot of weather records from across the country for the last LIA as it took decades for settlers to settle across the continent and keep accurate records. It seems from what I have been able to glean that Sydney had extreme weather events. There were record floods, heat waves, hail storms in mid summer and so-on. But none of this would have been unusual to those early settlers.
I do know that there were competitions in Sydney from about 1810 to 1830 as to who could grow the best pineapples and sugar cane. You can’t grow these successfully in Sydney today unless you have a glass house (which obviously they didn’t have back then). This suggests that the summers were pretty hot!
But then the same happened in Europe. In many years frosts occurred at nights in southern France until May, even early June and then within days a heat wave started and continued until September. This is why LIA is a misnomer. They should be called EEP’s (Extreme Event Periods).
Hey Power Grab, I dont know,but today (thats Friday it has been snowing over most of the blue mountains (about 3000ft) all the way up to Stanthorp (inland from Brisbane) I reckon that Tim Flummery bloke ( the Climate Commissioner) who has been telling us that we would never see snow and rain again has got a spin on this, It must be Tony Abbots (the Opposition Government) Fault because he argued against a Carbon Tax and so Juliar Gillard (That Bad-assed Woman that labasted Tony in Parliament the other day) had to bring in a Carbon Tax because she sent Oz broke and she needs the money, What could you expect? the Tax has worked!
As th sun gets weaker and less spots form in the coming years, we will all look back at the 90′s and early 2000′s as the unusual warm years I’m afraid.
In Brisbane its dam freezing today after a 30+ day last week. Its all started the media dont get it..Say oh its just a one off!
The drought is over, germination has taken place for areas that didnt get burnt but a lot of land did get burnt so germination has succeeded. The drought is natural. Global Warming is just 2 words, nothing to do with us the world revolves with carbon dioxide. I don’t know this but would a volcano let out more carbon dioxide than we ever have all in one go? Before the ice age, ice caps melted, water from the melting ice ran into the sea current and then froze it. It could very well happen this time, or not. I know we take up the magority of the land but we are still miggit compared to earth. i dont think we are big enough yet to change warming or cooling
add to this..
NSW which is a warmer subtropical sorta state..copped 5!!!!!cm of snow as well.
heard it on the am news reports and was laughing heaps.
To PowrGrab, well Hallett Cove, which is NOwhere near the Hallet in the mid nth, had Glaciation as the rocks etc and gouges are ,or were, some years back quite evident and schools used to be taken there for science lessons.
Hallett and Jamestown/ Peterborough/Burra etc have been known to cop snow before, ditto Clare valley but only small dustings, and I remember some brutal frosts in October, some years back,
However the really low temps and Snow IS really really out of order for the time of year.
I had started to leave the Horses rug off, and thought I could cease the woodfire as well, Boy was I wrong! the Air again today has an Icy bite to it, so its not over yet.
heres the guff on the NSW snowfalls
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-12/snow-falling-across-eastern-australia/4308904
It’s so cold tonight here in Brisbane. It snowed in Stanthorpe as well, about 2 hrs away. I knew all that warm weather we had was just going to be a false start to spring. Feels like the middle of winter right now ><
Rubbish, this cold weather is caused by a lack of windfarms and a lack of windfarms causes all sort of other wacky weather. We need to get more public money to rich privateers to build more windfarms.
NSW has also copped a significant dumping of snow 20cm plus (8 inches plus) in some areas like Crookwell, roads closed, schools closed, rail closed etc.
Also SOI on way up, could see another La Nina on the horizon, solar cycle still very low
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