May 2002:

Monday 20/5/02:

Nice little fall at Oberon yesterday afternoon with 3cm of snow falling at Mount Trickett from 3:30pm to 4:30pm. See area map to locate this area. Turning off the Great Western Highway just after Hartley, the rain turned to sleet near Hampton then light snow fell at the base of Mount Bindo (around 1000 metres ASL) - you can locate Mount Bindo at the T-intersection a few kilometeres south of Hampton, there's a reserve there full of pine trees. Sleet/snow became quite intense and was interspersed with snow grains that pelted the windscreen. Descending into Jenolan Caves, the sleet turned to rain but soon appeared again then snow too as I arrived at Mount Trickett on the other side of the valley/gorge. The snow was pea sized flakes at first and then before long, larger flakes appeared as the snow became moderately heavy. At around 4:30pm, I headed home. It had started to snow along the ridge back to Mount Bindo and sadly I hit a kangaroo near here, slightly damaging the car and killing the roo. No snow in Blackheath to speak of during this outbreak although a few flakes briefly fell this morning in strong down drafts. The windchill was the most significant aspect in Blackheath with gusts over 70kph. More snow fell in the Oberon area during Monday. Mostly light to moderate falls.

June 2002:

Tuesday 18/6/02:

A cold day in Blackheath today. The temperature started out at 1.5C for a minimum with an 8/8 sky of strato cumulus. Unfortunately the moisture wasn't around at the coldest part of the day (morning) so there was no snow at this time. By lunchtime, cold rain and sleet started to fall and whilst the temperature dropped a little, there wasn't any real snow, apart from a few soggy flakes. Still, the maximum temperature didn't get above 3.5C all day and 10.5mm of precipitation fell making for a cold day indeed. I received a phone call from someone in the Mount Trickett area and they had "a good few centimetres of snow" on Tuesday afternoon, starting about lunch time and into the evening. They also observed "flakes falling as big as your hand" which is apparently a quite rare phenomenon, associated with very moist cold outbreaks. Thanks to the folk at TWC weather forum for their help re identifying this phenomenon.

Friday 28/6/02:

Another particularly cold day in Blackheath today. -1C was the minimum this morning with light snow showers commencing by day break and continuing intermittantly until around 10am. I made a quick dash out to Mt Trickett around lunchtime and was greeted with sleet on the way through in Hampton and then snow before the descent into Jenolan Caves. There was patches of snow on the road here from falls earlier that day, I presume. By the time I drove out of Jenolan Caves and up to Mt Trickett, I was greeted with beautiful powder snow some 10 to 15cm deep and much deeper than that amongst the trees. It was some of the driest snow I have seen. Light to moderate snow fell for the hour or so that I was there. At 4pm this afternoon back in Blackheath as I type this, it is snowing lightly but persistantly again. Our maximum temperature today was 2.5C

July 2002:

Saturday 6/7/02:

Fresh to gale force winds have buffeted Blackheath since Wednesday the 3rd of July. Very light snow fell on Thursday morning with gales continuing into Friday. Light sleet also fell on Saturday morning. The Oberon region and places to its south had snow on Thursday and more snow on Saturday. This morning I went to the local lookouts and you could see it falling out that way whilst the temp here was 1C. It would have been below 0C on the higher parts out that way.

Thursday 25/7/02:

Last night cold air came in from the south-west, then south, and produced hail (3 to 5mm in size) at around 5pm. It lasted for about fifteen minutes. 4mm of rain was recorded which produced a nice freeze by this morning with icy conditions throughout the town. I recorded -1.5C as a minimum at my place. If there had been more moisture associated with this front, snow would have been likely. This is the story of our winter so far, enough cold air at times but little moisture. Not an unusual situation for our town.

August 2002:

Saturday 3/8/02:

I have been staying at Oberon for the past few days and we were hit with just about every form of weather you could imagine! Saturday started off very mild and by early afternoon a number of storms that bordered on severe hit us. Gale force winds, hail drifts 5 to 10cm deep, sleet and slushy snow fell from mid afternoon and into the night. 5 to 10 cm of snow fell at Mount Trickett - we visited this area just after day-breaak on Sunday. All in all, a great afternoon and night of serious weather!

Tuesday 13/8/02:

A nice little fall in Blackheath last night. Around 2cm of snow covered the ground in a very crusty cover. At one stage, heavy flurries swirled and rolled around violently for 10 to 15 minutes in strong winds. It also sleeted then snowed at Katoomba at lunchtime for around 15 to 20 minutes but didn't settle. Earlier on Monday, we had sleet and some light hail. Light snow flurries have been falling this morning but no settling.

September 2002:

Wednesday 11/9/02:

Well, this is an outside of winter report but it deserves mention here. Unusual precipitation started falling at around 5pm yesterday. The temperature was just above 5C and soft hail or snow pellets began to fall. They were pure white, about the size of polystyrene beads from a bean bag, rounded at the one end and cone shaped at the other. They floated rather than pelted down and settled on the ground softly without bouncing. If I had not known the temperature, I would have said it was snow but at this stage snow pellets or soft hail seems the best description. They fell for around half an hour or more and settled lightly. Then hail fell briefly followed by sleet then snow. The dew point temperature was below zero at this time even though the temperature was around 3 to 4C. Later in the evening, around 8pm, it started raining, sleeting then finally wet snow came down for half an hour or more. The temperature dipped just below 1C at this time. This morning, there is a heavy frost intermixed with light frozen snow. The temperature got down to -0.5C. Total rainfall for the event was 3mm.