An intense low will is about to push a strong cold front across southeastern Australia, bringing together the ultimate trifecta in the alps: low pressure, moisture and cold air.
The cold air arrives on Monday night into the early hours of Tuesday, when it should rapidly change from rain to snow and lower down to around 1200 metres (ie throughout the alpine area).
On the snow forecast at Jane's Weather we are seeing some consensus across the different weather models, which gives us higher confidence. If they are all singing a similar tune, then we are more likely to see that!
It does fall as rain first, so the totals won't be huge, and it falls onto bare ground - so don't expect miracles here, but we are likely to see a nice kick off as we count down to the official opening of the snow season.
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Looking at some forecasts, Mt Hotham has the cold air arriving late on Monday night. The red (then blue) line is our AI Forecast, while the pastel lines are from the different weather models. They are in fairly close unison at to when it changes from rain to snow - but the Euro model (green) is keen on the cold air arriving mid to late afternoon.
Perisher sees the colder air a few hours later (as you would expect being located a little further east). The models are in closer agreement here, with all changing from rain to snow between around 11pm and 3am.
Then it should steadily turn whiter and whiter up in the alps during the day on Tuesday!
