Extraordinary forecast

Updated…

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting well over 100 mm of precipitation for our alps across the 8 days to Monday 30 June. Nearly all of that would be snow at the predicted temperatures, for potentially 1 m aggregate snowfall, an extraordinary outcome by Australian standards.

The highest recorded one week depth gain at Spencers Creek (near Charlotte Pass, midway between Perisher Valley and Thredbo) was 109.5 cm in the week to 8 August 1996. This event won’t rival that because the fall will be split over two measurement weeks and because of snow compaction over the interval, but it remains an extraordinary forecast in the context of our 60 years of snow depth records.

So will it actually happen?   Possible   Better than possible   Likely…   As at the morning of 24 June, 50 mm is already in the gauge at Perisher Valley. (It’s great to see the Perisher automatic weather station’s heated tipping-bucket raingauge still operating at -4°C under heavy snowfall. Others could take note.)