From:
Barrington Tops, Written by: Grant Burgess
http://raymondterrace.hunterweather.com
Accompanied
by Tim Grugeon
Once again the
lead up to this event was seemingly on edge. About 48 hours out the freezing
level was predicted to fall to around the 1000m level over the Barrington Tops
(BT) & part of the Northern Tablelands (NT). The fact the BoM predicted snow to fall to 600m on Thursday on the NT
was very promising.
The fact
that Tim & I both wouldn’t be able to chase until Sunday was a downer.
Through Wed
& Thu it was reported that higher areas on the BT received as much as 15cm
of snow. Hunter Springs (HS) received 8 – 10cm and the last of it melted on Sat
afternoon, thanks to Mrs Wright for the HS snow
observations.
On the day
we went up, all the snow to HS had melted. On the drive on towards Polblue there were isolated patches of snow but the
persistent rainfall melted virtually everything from the days before. Over
about 1400m saw very heavy fog & light rain set in. At 1715 polblue was around 5°C with moderate rain. Freakishly
though, only about 5 mins down the road it was clear
sky & bone dry.It was clear nearly all the way
back to Singleton where fog patches became very thick. Light rain again began
to fall near Tarro all the way home.
Another
reason for this trip (apart from chasing snow) was to install a Stevenson
screen at HS (1235m ASL) for use by Mrs Wright.
Although she has been recording temperatures for about the past 2 years, both
Tim & I thought the position of her thermometer (underneath her carport –
about 1m from her house & 1.8m above the ground) was not the best spot for
accurate temperature measurement.
Although
the temperatures recorded so far seem impressive, I feel this will further give
a true indication of temperatures in the area. Generally from what I saw, the
lowest minimum temperature recorded was -6°C, lowest maximum temperature was
0°C & the highest maximum temperature was 32°C. Can’t
wait to get some new results though.