It’s snow day across the state with falls down to 500m

An overnight fall of snow has caused road closures, but it hasn’t hindered families from donning their beanies and their gloves to flock to The Springs. WEATHER WARNING.

STRONG winds are expected across the state tomorrow and are not expected to ease until Monday.

A severe weather warning has been issued for damaging winds expected from early tomorrow morning with average winds of 60 to 70 km/h forecast, and peak gusts in excess of 100km/h possible, for the West, North Coast, Bass Strait Islands and far South.

The Bureau of Meteorology this afternoon said the the snowline would remain about 500 to 600m for the rest of today, rising slightly overnight, before dropping again to 500m tomorrow.

Flood warnings and a watch remain current with 25 to 40mm of rain so far recorded broadly into the West, far South and Central areas.

Showers are expected to continue for the rest of the day in the West and South and snowmelt may increase runoff over the next couple of days.

⚠️ Severe Weather Warning issued for damaging #winds on SUNDAY for the north coast, western #Tasmania, the far south, and the Bass Strait Islands. Winds picking up early Sunday morning. See https://t.co/V9LYfDAYDq for details and updates; follow advice from @SESTasmania. pic.twitter.com/CSMwAxreg5

— Bureau of Meteorology, Tasmania (@BOM_Tas) July 13, 2019

Snow has blanketed much of the Tasmania’s south this morning, with falls down to 500m in some areas.

Pinnacle Rd on Mt Wellington was closed at The Springs, where families gathered to throw snowballs and made snow kangaroos.

The Mt Wellington Explorer has been able to take busloads of people past the road barrier at The Springs, continuing as far as The Chalet cabin and the start of the Big Bend Trail.

Hobart City Council bushland manager John Fisher said there was more snowfall at these sites than at the mountain’s peak due to the wind.

Snow much fun

VIEW GALLERY

Further afield the Maydena Bike Park in the Derwent Valley was forced to close for the day, with snow falling to the lowest operators had seen it in their 18 months of business.

Manager Rhys Ellis said this morning’s snow was definitely the most volume he had seen on the mountain so far.

“Usually we can open from the halfway drop off point, but this is the lowest we’ve seen it,” he said.

“Typically even if we get it, it doesn’t even settle.”

Lake Dobson Rd to Mt Field has been closed until further notice due to snow and ice.

Waterfalls Cafe and Gallery owner Rachel Power said the national park is busy with families today due to the biggest snow dump of the season so far.

PAIR FEEL TRAPPED IN HOMELESS CRISIS

“The benefit of all the rain is that the waterfalls are really specky,” Ms Power said.

“We’ve still got the end of the funghi season, so lots of colourful mushrooms.”

Ms Power said the big dump of snow is exactly what the area needs following the summer’s weather.

“After the bushfires this is exactly what we needed,” she said.

“Even though the weather has been up and down, the atmosphere has been great … such an amazing time in the park.”

Brighter clouds on the IR (inverse) image over #Tas are indicative of very cold air & heavy showers (with the odd thunderstorm). Lots of cold weather warnings, as well as wind & flood warnings today, continuing tomorrow which gets even windier at https://t.co/NHL3HY0zFO pic.twitter.com/i9PAscZwRP

— Bureau of Meteorology, Tasmania (@BOM_Tas) 12 July 2019

There was also plenty of snow at Cradle Mountain with staff at Devils@Cradle estimating the snow was up to 40cm deep in some spots.

Ben Lomond snow sports in the state’s North has also had a decent snowfall overnight, with about 5cm-10cm of coverage in areas.

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