Thursday, 11 June 2009

BARRINGTON TOPS SNOW CHASE

From: Barrington Tops, Written by: Grant Burgess

http://raymondterrace.hunterweather.com/

Accompanied by Vanessa Parkes (auntie)

News items stated a 5cm fall of snow Tuesday night followed by a further 3cm fall Wednesday night. This made me very confident that we would see some sort of settling, the only question was how far up would the road conditions, my car & my confidence allow me to go?

Williamtown sounding details looked promising: wed 10/06/2009  (thu 11/06/2009)

Thickness                         5383     (5408) 

850hPa Temperature          1.0°C    (0.4°C)

We observed our first settled snow (albeit highly melted) at 1270m which was accompanied by some impressive icicles just below the dingo gate. Car thermo was 4°C. Puddles of water here had a thin 3mm film of ice on top.

We come across better accumulations soon after the pine plot at ~1350m which thickened up quickly & as a result we didn't quite get as far as Polblue due to the icy roads, but did get to within 1km from the western side. This means we still got to ~1500m. Snow here was 5cm deep & had a solid crust on top due to a heavy frost the previous night. The temperature here was 0°C according to the car thermometer & 1.4°C according to my other thermometer, this was at 1300hrs.

Also went up to Hunter Springs but there was no evidence of ice or snow here even over 1300m. Car temp was 2°C here at 1545 but when we left was down to 0°C above ~1100m & at ~1730hrs. The temp stayed at or below 2°C till just east of Gundy (~240m ASL) & all before 1830hrs.

News reports from what I saw short of the main range appear to be correct, possibly even slightly underestimated. I wouldn't be surprised if the main range had up to 10cm on the ground.

We covered just shy of 500km but it was well worth the effort.