Yep gonna take a lot of practice and assistance in becoming a good driver all round especially in snowy/icy conditions. I will go with someone with a 4WD if its my first time up there, or something with plenty of experience!

Shane

One of the problems in going up to the Barrington Tops is the possibility of road closure.

I'm not sure if any of those gates have been actually locked as yet on a day when there's a lot of snow.

And remember that snowy roads can still be closed without any official notice on the roads themselves, at least in my area or areas to the west. As snowchasers its our responsiblity to check on the protocol for each council as they vary a bit. Council insurance or your own car insurance wont cover you in the event of an accident, from what I know.

This fella below was sitting in that position for ages as the police and rangers just left him there as the roads were closed at the time and he was driving way too fast. Any P plater, if booked, would be an automatic license cancellation I'd say. I've been through this myself as a P plater and it was heartbreaking at the time.

http://www.blackheathweather.com/winterarchives/June20th2004i.jpg

That big fella in the jumper looks familiar

You had to feel sorry for the poor little girl in the passenger seat, she was so scared.

Also keep in mind that the accident occurred at about 1pm, so well after the snow fall, but there was still almost 20mm of ice on the road. Poor old Max went A over T as he got out of storm beast.

:cheers: Will

I believe the gates on either side of the Tops on the Scone-Gloucester road get closed before/during any decent snow dump up there. Phil and I couldn't get past the gates on the E side at around 1200m in the June 2005 event. Not that we would want to go any further anyway as our 2WD wouldn't have gone much further I'd say!

Hi Dave, I went up in the June '05 event and had no problems at all. You must have been unlucky.
:cheers: Hec

Agreed Hector,

All the times i've been up the roads have been open, even the fall of July 2004 - went up on the 18th, a few days before the finish of that event. 30cm+ at Polblue then & i'd guess at least 50cm by the finish - not sure if the roads were kept open with that much snow though!

Actually come to think of it, the road heading W off the tops was closed on our way down due to a 4WD almost sliding off the road & down a steep incline.

But yes, with all the gates up that way these days they can be closed at anytime.

And the little bloke taking the pic almost 'Did a Pope' and kissed the ground head first himself.

Any shaded area is potentially dangerous. Closest call I ever had was when Adam and I in about 2001 had a semi lose it as he flew around a corner near Mt Bindo turnoff. Came across our side and missed us by a very small margin. This other one below was scary enough, moreso for the truckie not me. Should have seen his face as the truck kangarooed then slid across to my side. He just could not get it to turn that corner and thank goodness there was nothing coming. And what a stupid place for me to park my car... :rolleyes:

sliding semi

Nothing to do with snow, but the most spectacularly bad piece of foul-weather driving I've seen on a mountain road was going up the Moonbi Range between Tamworth and Armidale in heavy rain in June 1993 (it was still a single carriageway in those days). A car overtook me at high speed, spun out on the next corner (without hitting anything, and far enough ahead for me not to hit it), turned back around and overtook me again, going just as fast as the first time, a couple of corners further up the road.

Wow, that is pretty bloody stupid. We have an old family friend that lives up in the Moonbi Ranges on a few hundred Ha. On his wall he has a photo of the four seasons from his verandah, beautiful spring day, drought, with the main dam almost empty, everything under about 40cm of snow and almost the entire valley his dam is in under water.

One year he lost his shearing shed to a snowfall. I can't remember what year it was, but it would have been in the early '80s or '70s.

Oh and Blizz, don't worry, I think we all almost 'Did a Pope' at one stage!

:cheers: Will

Ahh, I never have problems, just wack the small leaver to 4WDL, lock those front hubs and let the mud and snow tires do their job, and take you where you want to go, anywhere.

Thought I would post in here as below is the usual 'Blue Mtns centric' stuff we all love.
Just crunching some figures for 2006 the other day to compare with my site in South Wentworth Falls @ 900m a.s.l & was astounded by the poor rainfall totals in 2006. I realise that the drought has been all over the news but some of these Western Sydney values are semi-arid. These are the some of the closer stations to Wentworth Falls
Rainfall at Wentworth Falls - 916mm - a slighty sheltered gauge & my temps are probably a touch cool so I won't publish them - I think that this rainfall is probably close to accurate.

Average values in brackets
Katoomba 1030m - min 8.4 (7.9)/ max 18.2 (16.6)/ ave 13.3 (12.2)/ rain 977mm (1399mm) 70% - the station has recently relocated & I have mentioned a few issues with maximum temps previously.

Mt Boyce 1080m (have used Mt Victoria averages)- min 8.1 (7.2)/ max 17.7 (16.3)/ ave 12.9 (11.7)/ rain 640mm (1061mm) 60% - so much lower than Wenty or Katoomba - I would love someone to give us a rundown one Blue Mtns rainfall variability on day.

Nullo Mtn 1130m (no averages) min 8.2 / max 17.5 / ave 12.8 / rain 603mm

Richmond 19m - min 10.4 (10.9) / max 24.4 (23.7) / ave 17.4 (17.3) / rain 491mm (810mm) 61%

Badgerys Creek 81m - min 10.3 (10.8) / max 24.5 (23.2) / ave 17.4 (17.0) / rain 483mm (789mm) 61%

Camden 74m - min 10.1 (10.2) / max 24.5 (23.6) / ave 17.3 (16.9) / rain 475mm (828mm) 57%

Didn't use Penrith Lakes as I think this site is possibly a bit warm due to all that open earth re the Lakes construction. It is amazing how uniform these far western Sydney results are!

Bowral 690m - (using Moss Vale for Jan 2006) - min 8.5 (7.7) / max 19.9 (18.8) / ave 14.2 (13.2) / rain 565mm (920mm) 61%

Bathurst 745m - min 5.8 (6.8) / max 22.2 (19.7) / ave 14.0 (13.2) / rain 420mm (631mm) 67%

Oberon (no record keeping on a few days) 1085m - min 4.9 (4.7) / max 18.5 (16.4) / ave 11.7 (10.5) / rain 539mm (846mm) 64%

The western Sydney temps aren't anything special but the rainfall is terrible - the more inland / elevated sites were warmer than average due to high maximum temps. Hope somebody else finds this interesting
Andrew

Thanks Andrew, I am not around as much in January but will reflect on your post a bit more as I have time. Some of the creeks up here are very low.

Nice post Andrew! Your research confirms my thoughts that at this stage of the season the Sydney Basin and surrounding ranges has been so very very lucky in terms of fire danger. With such low totals I thought we were in for a very bad fire season - but apart from a couple of days in November there hasn't been much. Usually you can count out bad fire setups once we get to February for Sydney and areas north. Hopefully we start getting some of that lush monsoon action.

As I like to keep an eye on this thread, and I know some of you watch out for Tassie threads, thought you'd like to know that Hobart had it's driest year on record with approx 355mm for 2006, average approx 600mm odd . Luckily our day temps are regularly cooler so baking of the soil isn't so bad. Still way too dry though.

Blizz - that pic of the semi is much more frightening when you realise he is not in control.

Thanks for that info Dave, that is low!, I am shocked I was not aware it was that low. I think places like Maydena and the southwest did a bit better as a %, I think Maydena had something over 900mm, about 930mm, but also down on its average of 1214mm. Only a small area in the very SW near Strathgordon was actually right on average.

Sunny Corner between Bathurst and Lithgow had only 550mm out of a normal 950mm.

I new our rainfall out here was low, but under 500mm.. wow. Keith would have some useful info for kings langley also for 2006.

I think I have the full size photos filed away on disk but if I get a chance I will crop a shot of the guys face, he was peeing himself!

Figures in from Dad's at Lapstone - 587.6mm for the year. If they didn't have that 5 inches in a night in February (the fall that was concentrated over Glenmore Park / lapstone & Glenbrook) then they may have halso had a sub 500mm year - unbelievable.
I haven't looked at any totals further east but I suspect that coastal Sydney had a reasonable year.
Andrew

Blizz - how long did you stand there?