Frosty return: morning winter warning for Canberra

The temperature at Perisher Valley dropped to -4.3 degrees overnight, and Thredbo Top Station fell to -5.5 degrees, as a 3 to 4cm blanket of snow fell across the mountains.

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With temperatures still below zero at Perisher at 11am today, the snow looked to be sticking around until at least the afternoon.

“It’s a bit of a winter wonderland,” Perisher spokesman Richard Phillips told The Canberra Times this morning. “We’ve seen the first snowman of the season.

“It’s still pretty cold, and the snow’s been coming and going all morning.”

Mr Phillips said April falls weren’t out of the usual, but last night’s dump had left the mountains looking particularly white.

“This time of year you start to get those cold fronts come through, get the odd bit of snowfall,” he said.

“It certainly gets a lot of chatter on Facebook and other areas.”

Canberra also has had its first taste of winter this morning, with a cold front dragging the temperature down to nearly freezing in the capital, the coldest morning since October last year.

The mercury dropped to just 0.6 degrees at the airport this morning, over 6 degrees below the April average minimum temperature.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Nick Bright said although it was the coldest morning in about six months, the capital is still a way off the April records.

"During April we can always expect these cold mornings," Mr bright said. "It's probably a bit of a shock given we haven't seen these cold temperatures for a while."

The cooler conditions have arrived off the back of a cold front which swept through to the south of the ACT yesterday, bringing a mass of cold air over the region.

But Mr Bright said the sudden snap wouldn't last too long, with southerly winds expected to ease over the next day or so, and temperatures forecast to return to warmer April averages by the end of the week.

Canberra is expected to reach a top of 16 degrees today, before another cool morning tomorrow. But by Thursday the capital should be bathed in sunshine, with forecast tops of 21 degrees on Thursday, 22 on Friday, and a warm 24 degrees by Sunday.

This reporter is on Twitter: @hamishbr