Nervous yes, but laughing too as they've now got a captive market between Raglan and Marangaroo.

There's probably more to this story than has been reported but yes it was a terrible act.

Latest models showing about 10-15 cm's snow for Thredbo from this upcoming system.

Homer

WOW! Thredbo is currently -4.1C now and feels like -15C! Must be going to be an awesome snow there today and tomorrow. Temps expected to drop to -7C later today. This so intense cold front I seen since last season.

Blizzard conditions at Thredbo top station at the moment :-)

The snow guns should be firing overnight and into tomorrow to add to any of the natural stuff before milder conditions set in by the end of the weekend.

Looking at the extended forecasts though I cant see too much to get excited about other than the current system.

I fear it will be a quiet start to the season this year unless the current system over delivers and we get half a metre of snow over night.

Woohoo!!! Its snowing all the way down to the village. Nice to see the white stuff beginning to settle at Friday Flats.

Ouch! Charlotte Pass is currently -5.9C and dropping. Snow heavily!

Do not know where you would get that temp at Charlottes Pass.
But its a pretty good cover at Friday Flat.
http://ski.com.au/snowcams/australia/nsw/thredbo/thredbo3.html

Too bad the models look so weird over the next week or two, I lot of what has fallen will end up as frozen snow patches by weeks end. Then if more easterlies start with coastal rain will not be the best start to the ski season.

Still plenty of time for the season to come good though. I keep thinking back to 2008 when the season virtually started on the 1st of July and then stayed excellent and consistent until mid September.

I suspect we may have to wait until 2nd half June for this winter to really start.

Yes, my gut feeling and observations also feel that way re the winter frontal prospects. SAM is back into the positive, LWT is flatter than a church baritone and GFS (which is goodish at general trends) is looking frontless, in a snowy context.

Did anyone else notice Oberons minimum this morning -6!! Surely that would have to be a mistake?

Yeah same over here.Trying to tweak something out of the models to give a bit of hope.This waiting time can really get to me. All dressed up and nowhere to go.

Its the usual wind shaking again. I have written to BOM a number of times over the years about this, its just seems to happen over and over every time there are strong winds. I always suspect any min temp from Oberon unless its a calm clear night.

All is not lost with winter, even though everything looks almost useless atm it is reassuring to know that its actually quite common to get very strong deep highs in June. That is in fact what the models are showing, large strong highs ridging a long way south. Normally this pattern just snaps towards the end of June and would then change to cold fronts for the next 2.5 month until early September. This happened in 2008 which was actually a quite normal good winter. What was amazing is that SAM was actually high in 2008. So we can get a good winter even with a high SAM.

When the deep ridging of the highs breaks, the deep ridging actually has the effect of deflecting an unusually cold change near that break point, because it is pushed up from a long way South and primed with very cold air. So the deep ridging in early winter has its uses. This is what I am hoping will happen this year, that some time towards the end of June we get a major cold change.

The longwave chart looks pretty flat - does the imminent snapping of the high ridging you spoke of get reflected in the longwave charts at all?

Yes I would expect that to be reflected in the LWT when it happens.
However I do not think the LWT is possible to reliably predict beyond 2 weeks. Even SAM is not all that predicable beyond 2 weeks. Both predictions are not much better than the limits of the models because the predictions are based on the same information. Only difference is that for LWT and SAM, the predictions make a very generalized result so it can be accurate for a longer time scale than a specific forecast, while models will always spit out specific result that could be one of many outcomes.
Also I would expect some indication of a LWT moving into SE Australia for a stronger cold front to happen, but at only a week or two notice.

Anyway this is what I think, but could be wrong, happy to be shot down in flames and shown otherwise.

If I'm honest, I am disappointed that we haven't had stronger fronts in late April and into May, its looking the same as most years since about 1995.

There's nothing showing up at all for weeks at the moment, although we could get something coughed up without much notice via an east coast set up.

We should see stronger fronts by late June and into July which is perfect timing really. My concern is the trend of short winters will continue so frontal activity could be over by mid August.

Always hopeful though, lets wait and see.

I will be honest with you too Blizz, I am worried about exactly what you say as well. Although a little more confident than you of a better August this year. But that still does not change the worrying trend you describe.
If this winter turns out another dud like 2009 or 2010 then I know my thoughts will be getting stronger again to finding snowier pastures.

Looking like the start to ski season coud be about to come to screaming hault, latest OCF has big rains and mild temps for next weekend!

It was. The corrected temperature, which came through later, was +6, although that was 6.7 below normal. Most of the CT minimum temperatures were close to or identical with their 9am temps because of the strong wind flow and close to 100% humidity. Oberon's 9am temp was also +6.0.

Laurier, I posted the explanation about this earlier on this page, it was not +6 either, that would way too warm and not possible. Here it was 1.9 at 9am on 26th, in fact the 9am reading for Oberon was 2.8 according to the daily data which agrees well with me, since Oberon is between 0.5 and 1deg warmer than here ...
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDN60801/IDN60801.95735.shtml

G'day Mathew, it's DerekHV ala Derek40 and Facebook etc.
Are you currently in the snow?
I personally have not been to the snow for over 20 years, bar the artificial snow slope in Coffs Harbour!
My son is booked in for his Year 10 snow trip in late July, so this is good early news for the ski season.

PD, you're right. I confused the 9am and 3pm obs AND missed your earlier post. The min is still showing as -6. It'll be interesting to see if it gets picked up in the QC.