From:
Barrington Tops, Written by: Grant Burgess
http://raymondterrace.hunterweather.com/
Accompanied
by Tim Grugeon
Coming off
a poor NSW snow season, with marginal conditions imminent (though the BoM forecasted snow to fall right along the NSW tablelands
from this event only 2 days earlier) Tim & I decided to chance it &
chase the Barrington Tops (BTs). The fact that snow fell in the BTs only 3 days
earlier on Thursday to a depth of 12cm at Polblue to
1500 (reported in ‘the Herald’ newspaper from the NPWS), also in marginal
conditions, gave us some hope of seeing something.
As it
turned out the low pressure system near
The drive
up the valley was peppered with moderate showers & persistent heavy cloud
toward the BTs. A small patch of blue sky was visible to the S at one point
when passing through Muswellbrook. Around 2-3km from the Dingo Gate we ran into
heavy cloud/fog, light rain also began around this point.
The drive
toward Polblue saw some isolated patches of snow
(probably left over from Thursday) above 1400m. Arrived at Polblue camping ground around 1200 to sleety showers.
These sleety showers became briefly heavy & lasted on & off for about
the next 45mins. Temp here was 3.3°C at 1230 with a fresh 17.6km/h SE wind
blowing.
Devils hole
saw more thick fog & howling SE winds. The lookout was surreal – 1min
visibility was below 50m & the next it was above 5km! There was a cloud
layer steady above the valley with cloud base below us,
wind racing up the escarpment was making moisture in the air condense rapidly
producing some thick fast moving fog. Temp here around 1400 was 4.4°C with
winds gusting to 33.3km/h (from my Kestrel 1000) & 55km/h (from Tim’s Anemo) – it was bloody cold anyway!
We then followed
trails around the N edge of the plateau & come across another brief heavy
sleet shower at only 1200m & at a temp of around 5°C – very
unexpected. Polblue falls were in full flow & Tim
mentioned the water level was the highest he had ever seen it. Polblue swamp was also a good foot above normal level. Many
creeks flowed above their embankments in a widespread area above Gundy.
Another
enjoyable chase even though we had limited success & it was great to see so
much rain activity inland.