Sunday, September 19, 2010

Monster cold snap hits state

STRONG winds, heavy snow and record cold resulted in blackouts and road closures across the state yesterday.

Snowfall was reported in several areas and weather bureau records indicated it was the coldest September day Hobart had experienced since 1985.

Gusting winds brought down trees and spread debris, affecting traffic and power lines statewide.

More than 12,000 Tasmanians experienced interruptions to their power as a result of the weather chaos.


Tassie's winter weather 2010

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Aurora public relations officer Denice Barker said maintenance crews were still out last night attending power failures.

"There's still about 6500 people who don't have any power, mostly in the North and North-West," Ms Barker said.

"Hopefully those customers will have their power back on by tonight [last night] or tomorrow [today], but there's no estimate at this time."

Aurora sent 46 maintenance crews to 35 reports of wires down and 18 reports of trees falling on power lines as well as other weather-related outages.

While traffic was held up by fallen trees and road closures, motorists seem to have heeded warnings from police to be careful, with few collisions reported and no major injuries or fatalities recorded.

Tasmania Police advised closure of several roads, including Pillinger Drive at the foot of Pinnacle Rd to Mt Wellington and parts of Cradle Mountain Rd.

One incident added to Aurora's woes. Almost 1500 residents in the state's South experienced outages after a car hit a power pole at Nicholls Rivulet yesterday morning.

Cradle Mountain Park ranger Cameron Brooke said 30-40cm of snow had fallen overnight on Wednesday, which led to the closure of parts of Cradle Mountain Rd yesterday.

"It's been a huge dumping of snow," Mr Brooke said. "We've had to turn most vehicles back, but we have been letting a few four-wheel-drives through once we've made sure they can handle the conditions."

Mr Brooke said there hadn't been any collisions on Cradle Mountain Rd but several cars had to be rescued from ditches.

He expects similar conditions until at least Sunday.

"We've got a snow plough working overtime to clear the road, but we're expecting more snow over the next few days," he said.

Weather bureau climatologist Ian Barnes-Keoghan said Tasmania had not seen weather like this since 2002.

"We've had a mild and dry start to the year, which is now turning to cold, wet and windy -- it's unusual," he said.

Hobart's maximum temperature was 8.5C, which is 6.7C less than the September average.

Winds gusted up to 141km/h at Cape Bruny and 94km/h in Hobart -- much higher than the September averages.

Mr Barnes-Keoghan believes the trend of weather is slowly improving, but Tasmanians should be ready for some more bad conditions.

"There's still more of this kind of weather to come," he said.

"We advise the public to check the bureau and police warnings on the internet to keep up to date with what's going on."

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