IT’S two years since the Bathurst region woke to find the region had been blanketed by heavy snow overnight.
The snow had not been widely predicted, adding to the wonder of the morning.
Below is the Western Advocate report from the day, along with a gallery of reader photos that were submitted to the newspaper.
Bathurst awoke to a winter wonderland on Friday with thick snow blanketing the region.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Overnight the temperature dropped to -0.2 and by 11.30pm on Thursday, snow had started falling.
Many people took to Facebook to reminisce how long it had been since they had seen this type of snow in Bathurst.
Carol-Anne Morcom posted on the Western Advocate’s Facebook page that she has lived in Bathurst for 53 years and had “never seen it settle for more than maybe one hour, and not as heavy except on Mount Panorama”.
While Michelle Gough reminisced of a big snowfall around 40 years ago when she was still in primary school.
“I have vivid memories of making snowmen in the hospital park and having a snow day. It’s the only time I can recall that the snow settled just like today,” she posted.
But Debbie Higham remembered a huge dump of snow in Bathurst in 1985, and an even bigger snowball fight.
“I was at the now CSU in the Village. We has a huge snowball fight, Hut against Hut. I was the only one with dry feet as Dad had polished my school shoes, they were the only leather shoes then,” she said.
“There would have been 250-300 kids, great fun.”
But with huge snowfalls yesterday came widespread road closures across the Central West. The Mitchell, Great Western and Mid Western highways were all closed for most of the morning.
In Oberon a number of roads were closed including O’Connell Road, Duckmaloi Road, Edith Road, Abercrombie Road and local roads.
Then, over the Blue Mountains, Bells Line of Road and the Great Western Highway closed for parts of the day.
Weatherzone meteorologist Guy Dixon said they have no recording technology to know exactly how much snow fell overnight.
He said while Bathurst sits at a lower altitude than neighbouring Orange or Oberon, it is not “out of the question” for the city to receive such a dumping of snow.
But, he expects this will be the last of the snow for winter, with a high pressure ridge predicted from tomorrow.