Southern Queensland, Australia May Have Seen Its Most Significant Snow in Decades

Jon Erdman
Published: July 17,2015

Snow blankets the ground in Katoomba, New South Wales, Australia on July 16, 2015.
(Connor Richards/Facebook)

Parts of southern Queensland, Australia were blanketed by snow Thursday and Friday in what was considered by some the region's most significant snowfall in three decades.

Up to eight centimeters – roughly three inches – of snow were reported in the far south of Queensland, near the border of New South Wales, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).
Children were seen enjoying the rare treat of throwing snowballs in the town of Stanthorpe, about 215 kilometers southwest of the Queensland coastal capital of Brisbane, according to Network Ten.
BoM senior meteorologist Sam Campbell told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that, other than a five-centimeter snowfall in 2007, this may have been the state's biggest snowfall since 1984.

The atmospheric setup for the rare snow in southern Queensland on July 16-17, 2015.

Granite Belt Wine and Tourism Centre supervisor Karan Orr told The Brisbane Times people had jammed into the region around Stanthorpe hoping to see the rare sight of snow.
Stanthorpe's elevation is about 811 meters or 2,661 feet above sea level, making it one of the cooler locations in Queensland. However, Stanthorpe is situated at 28.7 degrees South latitude, putting it about the same distance from the equator as Orlando, Florida.
South of Queensland, snow also blanketed the tablelands and higher elevations of New South Wales, including the towns of Taralga, Woodstock, Portland, Bathurst and Katoomba, west and northwest of Sydney.
The culprit for this strange snowfall was a bullish upper-level low-pressure system which slid through eastern Australia.
Moist, rising, unstable air with this feature manufactured precipitation into an air mass quite cold even by local standards for the heart of winter.
This was the second bout of unusual snow and cold in Australia in less than a week.
Over the past weekend, a rare snow dusted the hills around Adelaide and thundersnow wowed residents in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.

MORE: Best U.S. Winter Photos 2014-2015