As far as we know, Australia did not mysteriously flip upside down on Tuesday, although you could be excused for thinking that as snow fell in Queensland while Tasmania recorded some unusually warm midwinter temperatures.
Let’s start with the Queensland snow event, which was nowhere near as dramatic as the heavy snowfalls of July 19, 2015, when Stanthorpe and nearby towns on the Granite Belt and Scenic Rim saw up to 10 cm of settled snow.
We reckon for today only we may be the coolest gallery in #Queensland 😉 Open from 10am to 4pm. #Stanthorpe #snow pic.twitter.com/PEzU7udCeI
— StanthorpeArtGallery (@StanthorpeArtG) July 17, 2015
What we saw on Wednesday, as a pool of cold polar air made it all the way north across the NSW/Qld border, was just a few snow flurries.
Almost nothing settled on the ground due to a lack of moisture and marginal temperatures, but as you can see in the video below at Spicers Peak Lodge at an elevation just over two hours southwest of Brisbane, there were definitely flakes flying in the air.
Some of the Queensland temperature observations of note included:
- A Tuesday maximum of just 7.5°C at Applethorpe (just north of Stanthorpe).
- A Wednesday morning minimum of 2.7°C on at Sunshine Coast Airport (just north of Maroochydore), a very chilly reading for a location virtually right on the beach.
- Numerous subzero minimum temps, and not just in places like the Darling Downs and Granite Belt, including –1.8°C at Blackall in the state’s Central West, which was by far the coldest night to date in 2024 for the town of 1500.
Meanwhile in Tasmania, Tuesday was unseasonably warm.
We’ve talked often this week about how the low centred in the Tasman Sea has been directing relatively warm maritime air over Tassie while the cold airmass with Antarctic origins drifted north.
Some of the noteworthy Tasmanian observations included:
- A Tuesday maximum of 17.7°C at Wynyard, near Burnie, in the state’s northwest. That was the warmest July day in 37 years.
- A Tuesday top of 15.2°C at Cape Grim, on the very northwestern tip of Tassie, which was the warmest July reading in 11 years.
- A whopping 194.2 mm of precipitation at kunanyi/Mt Wellington above Hobart in the three days to 9 am Wednesday. Some of that fell as snow early in this system, before the majority fell as rain, with a few flakes returning into Wednesday morning.
The fact that snow is again falling on elevated parts of Tasmania tells you that the influence of the low pressure system is waning as it drifts further east into the Tasman Sea.
Cooler southerly winds are now prevalent over Tasmania and the southern mainland, where Victoria and southern NSW also experienced a brief warming spell on Tuesday.
Meanwhile in southern Queensland, it’s still relatively chilly with pockets of polar air yet to dissipate.
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