Dusting of snow to hit Tasmania’s mountains on Easter Sunday
Tasmanians are set to wake up to a light dusting of snow in some parts of the state on Easter Sunday, with meteorologists forecasting the coldest day in Hobart this year so far. DETAILS >
Tasmania
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Tasmanians are set to wake up to a light dusting of snow in some parts of the state on Easter Sunday, with meteorologists forecasting the coldest day in Hobart this year so far.
The forecast follows an Antarctic cold front that’s expected to cross Tasmania, which started on Saturday afternoon and will continue over the long weekend.
Senior meteorologist with the Bureau of Meteorology, Alex Melitsis, said they expected snowfalls around Tasmania on Saturday evening and early Sunday morning down to around 700 metres.
“So places like kunanyi/Mt Wellington could see a light dusting of snow. We’re not expecting huge snowfalls, but certainly, we’ll have visible snow on the mountains,” he said.
Mr Melitsis expects Hobart to get up to a max of 13C briefly, but will likely sit around 10C with showers and gusts making it feel cooler.
“So the coldest day we’ve probably had this year in Hobart,” he said.
While Mr Melitsis said the weather wasn’t looking “too concerning,” it could feel like a shock to the system on Sunday.
“(It will be) a big change in the weather we’ve had; we’ve had lovely settled autumn weather for the last week and now we’re going into a very cold Antarctic mass for the next day or two.”
The Bureau said they expected some strong south to southwest winds, with the potential for gusts of about 70-80km/h across parts of southern and eastern Tasmania.
“The windiest place on Sunday is probably going to be the far southeast so places like the Tasman Peninsula, Maria Island, Bruny Island could see gusts of around 90km/h,” Mr Melitsis said.
Mr Melitsis said the snow wouldn’t be low enough to impact any roads, but said a snow alert had been put out for bushwalkers in the Central Highlands and the west.
“Some potentially strong gusts across parts of the Central Plateau and the Western Tiers.”
It comes after a father and son from Queensland activated a personal locator beacon and were rescued by helicopter from the Walls of Jerusalem on Friday.
Mr Melitsis said the north of Tasmania was the place to be over Easter, with the conditions forecasted to be very different being mainly fine with temperatures getting into the mid-teens.
“The coldest air is across Tasmania early Sunday morning and then it starts to warm up again next week with more normal temperatures,” he said.
“But then it looks like we might see another cold front and colder conditions later next week and next weekend.”
With the strong southerly winds forecasted, The Bureau said they also expect some pretty big southerly swell on Sunday and Monday, with some pretty big waves to follow on the southern Tasmania coast over the next few days.
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