'Promised' snow fails to fall across Gungahlin
Jun 12, 2009
It was looking promising that the residents of Gungahlin and much of the local region, would wake to a 'winter wonderland' scene, with a thin layer of snow covering the parks and gardens on 10 June, 2009.The chance of snow had everyone talking, and hundreds of people logged on the the Gungahlin Weather Centre every few minutes to check the unfolding conditions, hoping the temperature would drop enough for snow.
Everything looked ready for the snow and, with the temperature just 3.4°C at 5pm on 9 June (and the cold air still to pass over us), snow seemed an almost certainty.
The ACT Weather Bureau had forecast snow down to 600m overnight on 9 June. The Gungahlin Weather Centre is 634m. Here at the Weather Centre we also thought snow was a formality, and confidently predicted it on the website.
The weather notes suggested: "A cold front will cross the region tonight bringing an increase in shower activity with snowfalls lowering to around 600 metres".
The 'official' Canberra forecast for 10 June read: Early shower or two, falling as snow on the ranges, with the chance of some light snow locally, clearing to a fine afternoon with increasing sunny periods. Moderate to fresh southerly winds. Forecast temp range: Min 0 Max 8.
Even the Canberra Times joined the 'snow dance' and, expecting it to have snowed by the time people were reading their morning paper, reported the following in the Wednesday edition:
"Canberra's first snow of the year is expected to fall until after lunch today as the mercury drops to its lowest maximum since last August. The Bureau of Meteorology expects about 1cm of snow in the southern suburbs such as Banks, Gordon and Bonython, and in suburbs higher than 600m along the city's western edge, such as Chapman, Fraser and Hawker".
Mother Nature had other ideas!
Unfortunately, despite the hype, all we woke to on 10 June was cold winds and mostly clearing skies. Snow had fallen extensively across the Brindabella Ranges to low levels, and the snow capped mountains surrounding the city looked spectacular as the clouds cleared.
A Bureau of Meteorology spokesman said that snow had fallen to about 800m as the front passed through, but it was still 3°C at the airport "about a degree too warm for snow" he said. Snow was also recorded at Lake Eucumbene, Adaminaby, and Orange.
The expected cold change did bring 2.8mm of rain to Gungahlin overnight, but the bulk of this fell between 11pm and midnight when the temperatures were still too warm for snow. It was 4.0°C at 11pm and 3.1°C at midnight.
Despite the lack of snow it was a cold day in Gungahlin with a top temp of just 7.2°C, but with the wind taken into account the high hovered around 2°C for most of the day.
Source: The Gungahlin Weather Centre and The Canberra Times - 10 June 2009.
Related Articles
- Gungahlin shivers through its coldest day on record with a maximum of just 2.6 degrees
- Plenty of cloud but little rain during a mild Gungahlin May
- Gungahlin records a dry, sunny April
<< News index
Send to a friendpost a comment
Post Comment
We welcome comments on this article, provided they have something to contribute. Please note that all links will be created using the nofollow attribute. This is a spam free zone. HTML is stripped from comments, but BBCode is allowed.