The 2024 Season Dusts off the Cobwebs

The possibility of a negative SAM signal around winter solstice shows signs of a decent system 20-25th June.

15-18cm of new snow has acculuated above 1700m in the last 24 hours, with snow tapering off throughout the day. As expected, snowfall occurred at elevations above 1700 meters where temperatures remained above freezing. With some reasonable accumulations in sub-alpine areas, it remains to be seen how much snow will stick around below 1700m when the sun comes out on Friday.

An overlay image to highlight the measurement against the snow-covered stake of this morning reveals 15-18cm of new snow above 1700m at Perisher in the last 24 hours. Source: perisher.com.au

As I mentioned in Sunday’s post, the 20-25th June window continues to build from strength-to-strength. This morning we see strong agreement amongst global models (GFS, ECMWF) as a decent system turns up for late next week.

Left to Right: 500mb Anomaly GFS, ECMWF & The Canadian Ensembles respectively. Source: TropicalTidbits.com/GFS/ECMWF/Environment Canada

But, not before the East Coast cops successive days of cold southerlies that will put hairs on the chests, up and down the NSW coastline. Relatively speaking, it will feel bitterly cold at times over the next week with coastal regions knocking over maximums 4-6°C below climate means.

With temps remaining low over the next week, resorts should benefit with large snowmaking windows and occasional snow showers to the eastern alpine & resort areas.

Long Range Commentary

Back to next week, we have seen the EC’s AI model do exceptionally well with the long range nature of the next big system as it picked up on it several days ago, nearly 2 weeks in advance, if it verifies.