May appears to be shaping as one of the warmest on record across eastern Australia. Surely that must presage a dreadful snow season? Well, no, not really; there’s very little correlation:
That shows the correlation of the season peak snow depths at Spencers Creek¹ since 1954 with the mean May temperature anomaly for the whole of Victoria.² (The May 2014 Victorian temperature anomaly looks to be going to be about +2°C, or a little less.³)
We wouldn’t want this warm period to go on for too long though.
Notes:
1. Midway between Perisher Valley and Thredbo, from Snowy Hydro Limited.
2. The temperature anomaly vs the 1961-1990 average, from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, here.
3. A rough estimate from these charts. The Bureau doesn’t publish an official estimate until next month.
When does Snowy Hydro begin making their snow depth observations?
When there’s snow 😉
(They don’t measure in summer, even when rare quite heavy falls occur. The earliest measurement they’ve ever made was 27.6 cm on 18 April 1996.)