The rare time this city in Australia saw accumulating snow
Snow isn’t common in Australia outside of certain mountain peaks
A humdrum affair in Canada is a big deal down under.
Snow is exceptionally rare outside of certain mountainous areas in Australia. But every once in a while, all the right ingredients align to provide lucky kids with a memory to last a lifetime.
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Australia is a large and sparsely populated country, coming in around 85 per cent the size of Canada with about 12 million fewer residents.
Snow is the farthest thing from the minds of most Australians. Conditions during the winter rarely line up for snowfall outside of the Australian Alps in the southeast corner of the country, as well as the higher elevations of Tasmania.
The only major cities that see snow on a semi-regular basis are the capital city of Canberra, which sits between 500-600 m in elevation, and Hobart in southern Tasmania.
Flakes are a rarity elsewhere. The Melbourne metro area’s last snowfall occurred on Aug. 10, 2005. ABC News ran the headline “snow surprises southern Australia” as suburbs away from sea level saw a dusting of snow for the first time in almost 20 years.
The average wintertime low in Melbourne hovers in the mid-single digits.
Higher-elevation suburbs of both Adelaide and Perth also recorded a few instances of snowfall during the 20th century. Sydney has never officially recorded snow, which is no surprise when the city’s all-time coldest temperature was 2.7°C on June 22, 1932.
Despite its rarity, photos and videos prove that snow fell on Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock) on July 11, 1997. This global landmark is located at about 25.3°S, which would be the northern hemisphere’s latitudinal equivalent of snow in the Florida Keys.