Antarctic winds have blown across Bathurst this week as the tablelands has felt the full force of winter.
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Temperatures dropped to -4.5 degrees on Tuesday, -4.8 on Wednesday and -3.5 yesterday – up to 6.4 degrees below the long-term June average minimum of 1.6.
Bathurstians have woken to iced-over cars, frosty front lawns and foggy mornings.
Weatherzone meteorologist Anthony Duke said the cold winds that arrived on Tuesday should start to move away by Saturday.
“An air mass passed close by Antarctica and it’s crossed up over South Australia and it’s led to clear days and cold nights,” he said.
The forecast was for a high chance of one to two centimetres of snow in areas in the Central Tablelands down to 500 metres up until 5am this morning.
Mr Duke said it had been a number of years since Bathurst had endured so many consecutive days of cold temperatures.
“For this early in the season, it’s been nine years since we’ve seen three consecutive days this cold,” he said.
But the recent burst of cold weather is not a record-breaker.
The coldest day on record for Bathurst was June 15, 2006 when the mercury dropped to -8.2 degrees – 9.8 degrees below average.
While Bathurst has had a very cold start to winter, Mr Duke said the weather will warm up.
“Towards the end, it’ll warm up to be above average due to the looming El Nino weather pattern,” he said.