Winter 2023

May 7th and 8th

An impressive snowfall for early May. It wasn't a classic system as it primarly favoured the eastern side of the ranges due to its lack of low pressure for a lifting mechanism to produce snow clouds. The sounding indicated that it wasn't even that cold of an an air mass. So, how did it produce snow? A low formed in the Tasman and via southerly winds at 700hPa, it fed nice amounts of moisture into the quite cold lower level air which produced snow for places like the Oberon Plateau and even some of the highest spots in the Southern Highlands like Robertson. The sounding indicated only -7C at 700hPa and about -22C at 500hPa but it was cold enough at 850hPa to produce nice snow above 1200M on the Oberon Plateau, up to 9cm at the Shooters Hill Cemetery. More will be added to this report as time permits. Blackheath only saw snow showers, graupel and sleet as Sunday unfolded. No real settling here as we lacked enough moisture.