GFS has been keen on a good cold area for a while now. At the moment it shows 540 & 536 thickness over pretty much all Tas and 532 in the SW areas around next Thursday. Moisture mostly in Western Quadrants - could possibly see snow to 500 metres or so if it eventuates as model currently stands.

Should be a few fires/heaters kick started in houses in Tas next week.

It would be a nice change. It's been quite mild here in Hobart so far this month.
I'm pretty sure it hasn't even dropped below 10 degrees once this March so far. It feels like summer still.

Yes, you have had a lot of warm weather this summer.

Check your pm's - I sent you a note

I will keep an eye on the models in the hope this change actually comes through for you.

EC, Access, GFS all going for this change now - would be good to be around Cradle Mt next Thursday/Friday

It looks good for Tassie come Friday. That's a lovely change for Friday, wow. Nice strong uppers, plenty of snow, I'd guess.

Reckon where I lived at 350m on side of Mt W would even be in with a chance of flakes - which I used to get quite a few times each year. Gee I miss that place.

Dave what are you doing in Bathurst?You need to get back down there in a hurry mate to be there for the winter.

Yes, I would consider living there if it wasn't for work and family. Still, storms or lack thereof would bother me.

Its a pretty good change due in by Friday morning. Strong uppers, cold enough through the levels for some excellent instability and...snow.

G'day Pete - Blizz mentioned it - Family all my family are in NSW, once I started losing some parents we decided it was time to be back and have more time with them. It's easier to jump in a car at a moments notice than organise flights, especially in the middle of tourist season.

But Tassie will always be the best place we ever lived by a million miles.

Yeah family is always the number one priority.Tassie will always be there.
Geez that cold air field in the bight is looking impressive in it's size.Could be a few surprises
in store.

Nice sat pic for this time of year

Sat pic looks great and those temps at 500hPa are just excellent, as well as nice tot tots, 700hPa RH and 850hPa temps. What an airmass. You could pretend that was heading straight for the CT of NSW if indeed upper support was better. The Tassie cam should be nice come tomorrow.

http://www.rosebay.tased.edu.au/camera.htm

Yeah, if I was on my own, I would quite possibly head down there to live but an older family member needs us and we need him. Waratah (600M) appeals to me, it gets regular snowfalls in winter and isn't too far from Burnie, which has the third largest hospital in Tassie. 100,000 or so can get you a house and there's that spot at nearly 1000M ASL, not far from town, if you wanted to see big snow.

Volunteer at the hospital and give them the house when you are gone, what a life...

Waratah though is very wet being on the Western Side - but yes being just a bit lower than Bathurst it get Waaay more snow - often the snow is washed away though as quickly as it came by subsequent warmer rainfall. But certainly would see it regularly.

I love Derwent Bridge but its remote (almost hey diddle diddle of the state) and not even really a town But I love the area. Snow there lasts longer and has better frost than Waratah (also drier)

Blizz go to Cradle and get almost 1500m (at the peak) for even BETTER snow.

There's an absolutely lovely village called Maydena, it's not high but is surrounded by rugged peaks - truly beautiful location. It's not far from Mt Field which is a place I used as my escape and took all my visitor friends to, many times a year. Icy glacial lakes, heavy snow, waterfalls galore, platypus, pandani, scorparia (ouch) mountains with scree slopes and tree lines, the Tarn Shelf, ice, evil Currawongs the lot!! I was there for May 2000 - what a time that was!! Gettin the ole Forester through deeper and deeper snow till it could bulldoze no more.

Actually Maydena approx 400m with snow capped mountains (in winter) encircling it.

When i was last in Tassie i drove the windy road from Poatina up to the plateau.Found a nice little spot in Cramps Bay to have our rolls and cuppa.Lots of shacks,some were a bit dodgy but there was some really good setups as well.I think it would be a bloody cold place in winter especially with the westerlies coming off the great lake.As it was we were there in late Nov and there was quite a few fires going.This place i would imagine would get plenty of snow.

It does ok up there but it's a bit of a rainshadow area so doesn't get as much as say 50km further West.

The view from above Poatina over the east is beautiful. It's a great experience to drive down (from the Tiers) with the everchanging viewpoints.

the number of "shacks" in those highlands is staggering - they range from tumbledowns to palaces.

Liawenee is the coldest town in Tas at approx 1000m - it indeed sees plenty of snowy days and of course it mostly comes in a horizontal fashion.

It can be a "bloody cold place" in Summer too at times, I often went via the Great Lake if going between Hobart and Burnie/Devonport - less traffic and more majestic.

Does look like a nice sat pic, showers closing in on me in burnie. Snow to 600m now - 300m lower than first forecast.

Waratah, sounds appealing til you visit. Good to visit on a snowy day if the hwy isn't shut from both directions. Will be snowing in waratah tomorrow. One of the fella's from the mine sends through the weather obs via email for those travelling in and out of the mine via waratah when the weather is ordinary. Will post here if I get them tomorrow.

Cheers DL good to have some local input. The breeze is chilly this am in Bathurst so must be much colder there. Mt Wellington on approx -2 and a bit so it's cool down there.

My son work at Cradle Mt so he'll see a bit as well.

Sat pic looks even better this morning with the speckle about to hit.

Snow to 600 - imagine if Bathurst was there at approx 700m we'd see snow quite a bit. Enjoy your cool breeze today in sunny Burnie.

Some good snow in Tassie this morning looking at the Mawson Tow cam

Yep Mawson is in Mt Field - the spot I mentioned above.

Mawson Cam looking Grand!

10-15cm i reckon

Hahah it would appear they arent all that down with posting of web cam images on external blogs/forums. Link to it anyway http://ski.com.au/snowcams/australia/tas/mawson1.html

Stone the crows: 5.9C at 2 PM: central Hoey. That is a cold airmass for March.

Mt Wellington -2.2 at 3.30 so it's definitely cold as you say.

Some of those current Tasmanian obs are making me queasy, way to cold for my liking.

NO NO NO NO NO!!!

They are making me salivate.

This just qualifies as Tassie. Have a look at some of these wind gusts from Hogan Island, 146 km/h:

http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDV60801/IDV60801.94949.shtml

I guess extreme winds are quite common there because the roaring 40's westerlies must squeeze through the narrow gap of Bass Strait, a similar effect to Wellington NZ.

Ok Sb, i have to ask. What is a convicted sockpuppet?

A sockpuppet is someone who uses multiple accounts in order to misbehave online (troll, vandalise, game the system etc). Mainly used on Wikipedia. The "puppet master" or sockpuppeteer controls various "puppets", who work together to meet the demands of the miscreant.

I may as well come out and say that I am snow4sydney (and briefly Brad_Nuker). I changed my handle to better reflect my location, namely, because I'm exposed to the south. Nothing more. Hence, the sockpuppet thing is a bit of fun .

Spoke to my son at Cradle this morning - he said plenty of snow there yesterday and overnight - obviously it's still there too. Earliest falls struggled with warm ground but eventually it started to hold.

Apparently looks pretty damn good there atm.

ok, i never would have guessed. cheers.

Our gridded extremes analysis is indicating lowest March maximum temperatures on record on Friday over much of central and southwestern Tasmania. Haven't had the chance to look at individual record-breaking stations yet. Mount Read's 0.0 misses the Tasmanian March record by a few tenths.

Make sure you let us know the stations that did record their lowest ever maximum temperatures when it's confirmed Blair

Can confirm the following records at stations with 30+ years of data:

Butlers Gorge
Lake St. Clair (two sites combined)
Tarraleah
Maatsuyker Island
Strathgordon (equal)

Take out Maatsuyker Island (off southern Tas) and the others are basically the centre of Tas (SG a bit more western) and within say 40 - 50km of each other if not less (as crow flies).

Cheers Blair.

So the cold air may have pooled at that central point or it was the right place right timing etc.