Weird white Christmas welcome in Australia by Laura Gilchrist
As reported yesterday there has been some unusual weather around in parts of Australia this festive season, and bearing in mind that it is summer there at the moment, it just got weirder still.
Snow fell on Victoria’s Mount Buller and Tasmania’s Mount Wellington on Monday, bringing some Australians something that we Brits don’t often see – a white Christmas! In a country often noted for its beach-based Christmas Day barbeques, snow during the summer is not unprecedented, but is unusual. A Bureau of Meteorology forecaster said that snow had fallen as low as 800 to 900 metres (2500 to 3000 feet) above sea level and around five centimetres (two inches) had settled on Mount Wellington.
The cold snap also brought some stormy weather to Melbourne, with torrential downpours of rain and hail causing flash flooding and strong winds dislodging roof tiles. It did not stop the Barmy Army – England cricket fans – holding barbeques on the banks of the city’s Yarra River ahead of the 4th Ashes Test. Barbeques were also held on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which saw temperatures more typical of an Australian Christmas, at around 27°C (81°F).
The unseasonable snow was welcomed by firefighters tackling bushfires in Victoria. Some 900,000 hectares (over 2 million acres) of forest have been burned out in the state, an area roughly the size of Cyprus. The fires threatened to engulf the resort on Mount Buller until the snowfall doused the flames, delighting the resort staff and firefighters who had stayed on the mountain to fight them.
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