Parts of Eastern Australia experienced their most intense winter weather in decades with heavy snowfall, floods and power outages. The snowfall disrupted lives all across New South Wales and Queensland over the weekend.
A cold front swept across the region , dropping 40 cm (16 inches) of snow in the northern new South Wales, marking the heaviest snowfall since the mid-1980s, according to Miriam Bradbury, Meteorologist at Australia’s weather bureau. Bradbury added that areas in Queensland also saw witnessed snow for the first time in 10 years.
“What makes this event unusual is how much snow we had but also how widespread, covering quite a large part of the northern tablelands,” she said. “This sort of event had occurred several times in the historical record, but the scale and intensity of the recent snowfall made it particularly remarkable,” she added.
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Not just snow, but extreme rains and storms also struck the region, leading to chaos. The New South Wales Emergency Service (SES) reported handling over 1455 such incidents. This included major flood warnings, storm-damaged building and stranded vehicles.
As per the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), tens of thousands of homes didn’t get electricity all night.
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According to New South Wales Police, tragically, a car was caught in the floodwaters on Saturday evening. A female in her 20s swept away; search efforts are underway.
