Snow Falls Outside of Sydney, Record Cold in Brisbane

Could you imagine what the reaction would be if this was a record high temperature instead of a record lows?:

COLD southerly winds blowing up from the snow-capped Blue Mountains have given Brisbane its coldest October morning in 32 years.

The mercury fell to 10.6 degrees in the City just before 5am, more than five degrees below average for this time of year.The previous lowest for October was 7.3 degrees in 1976, although Brisbane also recorded 6.3 degrees in October in 1899 at a now-disused weather station.

Amberley had an even colder start waking up to 6 degrees and Stanthorpe shivered on just two degrees.  [Courier Mail]

Here is what is happening just outside of Sydney:

Thoughts of summer have been temporarily bumped to the background, after snowfalls in the Blue Mountains this morning.

The Bureau of Meteorology confirmed reports snow had fallen in the mountains, and said there had also been falls at Bombala on the Far South Coast and at Cooma in the Snowy Mountains.

Temperatures in Katoomba were as low as 2 degrees this morning, which was enough to bring snow, BOM senior forecaster Jane Golding said.

“There are some thunderstorms at the moment, that’s what’s bringing the snow … the ground could be covered [with snow] in those places,” Ms Golding said.

“The situation we’ve got at the moment is an upper trough moving through, so the air in the upper atmosphere is very cold.

“There’s also a surge moving up the coast bringing cooler air at lower levels – the combination of those two things is bringing the snow.”

Snow in October has been reported less than five times in the past 50 years, weather service Weatherzone said.  [Brisbane Times]

I’m sure global warming will be blamed for this in some way.