From: Barrington Tops, Written by: Grant Burgess
http://raymondterrace.hunterweather.com/
As nobody else was available, I went solo in my front wheel
drive Daewoo Cielo.
The previous night I was looking through weatherzone
& the ‘forum’
section. I thought it would be interesting to see if our current weather
pattern (ie moderate S winds & coastal drizzle)
would produce any snow over higher ground. In short, I did not observe any snow
either settled or falling. Everyone I spoke to in the BTs also found the same –
nothing.
Come Wed morning I was unsure whether it would be
worth the time or petrol to chase the BTs. On top of that, I was not sure how
my small car would cope on the wet or icy dirt roads. Well, I thought “life’s
too short”, so I made a spur of the moment decision & headed off a short
time later.
The trip up saw showers last till
just past Branxton with puddles of water the whole
way. The temperature remained below 12°C until I got into
clearer skies when it rose to around 14°C. Drizzle began again around Moonan Flat with temps now down to 9.7°C at 1315. The
drizzle continued in patches & temps were 5.6°C at the Dingo Gate (1300m asl) at 1355 & Polblue was
3.4°C (1450m asl) at 1420. At Polblue
I decided to walk/jog up the road to the immediate east to a slightly higher
elevation & to be on the main ridge line (along the main
I recorded a min air temp of 2.4°C just to the west of
Polblue on both occasions where the road gets near
1500m asl. Both times saw
low cloud & drizzle in this area but I noticed the second time the low
cloud/fog was much thicker & moving much faster. Drizzle was also heavier
& I may have even seen the odd spec of sleet – though I’m not totally sure.
On decent, when passing back through the Dingo Gate
(temp 4.2°C) I noticed a wall of grey cloud just to my south (with cloud base
below me!). Around 15mins later I stopped for photos of the cloud swallowing
the areas I had just been at – I was then at around 1000m asl. I passed 3 locals on the way up with one bloke
asking if I had come across any snow. He said it was definitely cold enough for
snow higher up as temps had dropped a few degrees over the last hour. That wall
of grey cloud I mentioned above produced some lovely widespread drizzle/rain
areas in the area east of
Even though I did not come across any snow myself, I
would not like to say it hadn’t fallen over the last few days. Reasons I have
come up with for the lack of snow include: Possibly all melted or washed away
in the days rain, or more so the atmosphere was too
saturated – would have definitely been cold enough. Maybe some fell later in
the afternoon after I left.
An enjoyable day out even though I
did not see any snow & I was by myself.