Winter in Australia. Snow and cold are coming. Heat records have been broken so far

“Two cold fronts moving across southeastern Australia early this week will bring a major cooling spell. Unusually warm weather will give way to freezing temperatures in Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania,” news.com.au reported on Monday.

“This arrangement will bring snow to the Australian Alps (a range in the south-eastern part of the country – ed.)” said Jess Miskelly of Weatherzone, Australia’s main weather service. “The combination of cold air and moisture from the east will favor snowfall over eastern NSW,” she said.

10 centimeters of snow could fall in 48-60 hours in New South Wales. Another wave of heavy rainfall is expected on Thursday and Friday. A maximum of 13 degrees Celsius is forecast for Melbourne on Tuesday. In the city of Hobart, the capital of Tasmania, it is supposed to be 12 degrees C. Temperatures will drop below freezing in some areas.

Ski resorts will be filled with a wave of tourists who want to take advantage of ideal conditions for skiing, predicts news.com.au. 20-40 cm of snow may fall in some places by the end of the week.

At the beginning of this month and in July, the snow in the Australian mountains was thinning. Exceptional heat for several weeks has brought snowfall to the lowest level since 2006 in parts of the country, Weatherzone reported.

On August 1, in the Australian Alps, at an altitude of 1,620 meters, the snow cover was only 16.5 cm, which is well below the average for the beginning of August, which is about 70 cm. Some ski resorts have closed.

Public broadcaster ABC reported that for eight consecutive days in July, temperatures were 10 degrees Celsius above average. “Australia is melting in the middle of winter. Is winter over?” – asked the abc.net.au portal in the title of its article.

On Thursday, August 3, the southeastern states recorded the highest midwinter temperatures in decades. It was 19.8 degrees Celsius in Melbourne, the warmest at this time of year in 10 years. In the city of Hobart, 19.6 degrees Celsius was measured, the highest in the middle of winter in 20 years. Adelaide was in first place in this ranking, where the temperature turned out to be the highest in 48 years and amounted to 24.7 degrees Celsius.

Australia is not the only continent in the Southern Hemisphere to experience unusually warm weather last month. In many South American countries it was hot, the temperature exceeded 30 degrees Celsius.

Scientists reported that this year’s July was the warmest July and the warmest month on record.