The country’s southeastern alpine regions could about to be hit with a fresh dumping of snow, with an incoming cold front expected to bring another 20cm to ski resorts this week.
The chilly weather comes ahead of this year’s winter solstice, which typically falls between June 21-23 and is normally the shortest day of the year.
Very cold air masses about the nation’s alpine regions have created ideal conditions for a unique weather event known as “thundersnow”, bringing an abundance of lightning around ski resorts.
Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) senior meteorologist Dean Narramore said this year the solstice is forecast to occur on June 22, as per usual.
Thursday next week will signify a very important date for Aussies – we will officially be over the hump of winter’s darker and shorter days.
“While there can be a bit of a lag, with July and August being our coldest months, post-solstice our days will be getting longer,” Mr Narramore said.
Mr Narramore also said an incoming cold front moving across the region on Sunday and Monday could bring another 10-20cm of snow.
Psyched snow bunnies shouldn’t get too excited by the recent snow dump, however, as the high likelihood of an El Nino this winter is likely to suppress rainfall in eastern Australia during winter and spring.
“It’s always tough to say whether it’ll be a good ski season, but looking at the seasonal outlook, we’re expecting drier conditions over winter,” Mr Narramore said.
“It might not be as good as the last few years, but we’re off to a good start.”
Meteorologists have also reported a number of “thundersnow” events earlier in the week across the Australian Alps, bringing multiple lightning strikes.
While lightning usually strikes with warm air, a very cold air mass can create a sufficient temperature contrast between surface and upper level temperatures to make storms.
This comes after large regions of the country experienced warmer than average temperatures for the first fortnight of June, particularly in the central, eastern and southeastern parts of the country.
Adelaide had its second warmest start to winter since 1887 with a mean of 16.1C, while Melbourne had its sixth warmest start with an average minimum temperature of 10C.
Meanwhile, Queenslanders shivered through a cold morning on Thursday, bringing a run of unseasonably warm weather to an icy end.
Temperatures plummeted significantly on Thursday, sinking to as low as -3C in the Darling Downs, after Brisbane enjoyed several days of temperatures in the mid-20s.
NSW experienced a similarly frosty morning, with Glen Innes dropping down to -6.7C on Thursday, significantly colder than the minimum temperatures of -3C recorded at Perisher and Thredbo.
“Temperatures were running 4-6C above average in Queensland yesterday, but now we’ll see pretty average conditions for much of the country,” Mr Narramore said.
Things are expected to warm up on Friday and Saturday across the south of the country before another cold front moves in from Sunday to Monday.
“That will bring showers, gusty winds and more snow to alpine areas across Victoria, NSW, SA and Tasmania,” Mr Narramore said.
“Then that will continue into mid-next week with showers continuing into Tuesday.”
This next cold front could bring another 10-20cm of snow for alpine resorts on Sunday and Monday, after the mountains already saw widespread snow of 20-30cm over the past few days.
As of Thursday, 27cm had fallen at Mt Hotham and 25cm at Perisher.
Lots of sunshine is forecast for both Friday and Saturday and while weather warnings are “pretty quiet” for much of the country, the incoming cold front might bring strong winds to SA, Victoria and Tasmania on Friday and Saturday.
“We’re also likely to see widespread frost continuing through much of inland NSW and southern Queensland over the next few days,” Mr Narramore said.
“Maybe even in southern parts of the Northern Territory, with some morning frost for the next few days, which should continue into the weekend and possibly even early next week.
“All pretty typical winter weather around the country.”