Aussie christmas

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Only of the Aussie horse trainer variety.

I haven't seen old-fashioned white Christmases since the 70s.
I remember the first time it rained on Christmas I was incredulous.
That was 1979.


No Saab stories either.

Aussie white christmas - If you live in Queensland in summer

I think it would be mind-blowing to see snow in July.

Queensland is actually in the tropics, but is hit often by tropical cyclones which causes weird weather inversions that includes frequent hailstorms resulting in country towns getting blanketed by hail which looks like snow

After many years establishing a sound engineering reputation and ultimately a luxury price tag, Saab failed to build its customer base beyond its niche following.[5] After struggling to avoid insolvency throughout 2011, the company petitioned for bankruptcy following the failure of a Chinese consortium to complete a purchase of the company; the purchase had been blocked by the former owner GM, which opposed the transfer of technology and production rights to a Chinese company.[6] On 13 June 2012, it was announced that a newly formed company called National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) had bought Saab Automobile's bankrupt estate.[7] According to "Saab United", the first NEVS Saab 9-3 drove off its pre-production line on 19 September 2013.[8] Full production restarted on 2 December 2013,[9] initially the same petrol-powered 9-3 Aero sedans that were built before Saab went bankrupt, and intended to get the car manufacturer's supply chain re-established as it attempted development of a new line of NEVS-Saab products.[10][11] NEVS lost its license to manufacture automobiles under the Saab name (which the namesake aerospace company still owns) in the summer of 2014 and later produced electric cars based on the Saab 9-3 but under its own new car designation "NEVS".[12][13]

^
Copied that from Wiki. Which lists Saab as "defunct" as of 2016.

So thats why you dont hear much about Sweden's other car company much anymore.

The story of Saab IS a "sob story". Lol!

Oh poor Saab

Confirmed: We’re in for another green Christmas. Possibly wet. Definitely not white.

Apparently at least one of the local 3 ski hills has temporarily closed due to lack of snow and temperatures too warm to make any. Very mild Winter this year. Might cool down and still get a bit of a ski season.

Makes me wonder about the decades long construction of a new ski resort here in BC that’s the legacy project of a local family. Will that area even have snowy Winters when the place is finished construction? Who knows. Hopefully they’ve employed some climate nerds for accurate insights on the matter.. because it’s a several hundred Million dollar project or something like that.

Living in Australia, most of us get our longest holiday breaks around Christmas. This means if we want to holiday in the northern hemisphere (e.g. Canada) then we visit mid-winter.

You’ve never seen snow in July before?

Just gotta get up to a high enough elevation and there’s snow year round.

I’ve been snowboarding on the Blackcomb glacier (Whistler) in mid June or so before. IIRC they only close it for July & August, something like that.

I’ve seen a bit of snow on the side of mountain highways in July before, too. Just gotta get high enough to where it’s likely to stay year round.

I’d say July/August is prime time to visit the West Coast and have some hot sunny days. Sometimes extends well into September and beyond as we had a late long Summer this year.. but July/August is more reliably nice.

Mid Winter is better if you’re coming here to go skiing/snowboarding, though.

The rest of the year you can count on clouds & rain. Lots of rain.

I imagine that's like northern Europe. Lots of gray skies.

What about snow falling in July?

Down south here in the lower forty eight United States we have mountains with permanent snow caps (as does the Alps in Europe). Though only in the west. Eastern mountains dont get that high.

Colorado Springs, Colorado is in the middle tier of US states..far south of Canada. But its at the foot of Pikes Peak (14 thousand feet) which has a visible white top year round. Or did when I was a child.

Our family drove up the famous highway that spirals up to the summit of Pikes Peak when I was a child to visit the souvenir shop at the top of the mounatin...and sis and I had a snowball fight outside.

It's rare here, but it does happen. Typically it's just a small bit of snow falling at high elevations - locals know that when travelling various mountain highways in the Summer time that the weather Can change from Sun to Snow in a heartbeat. Doesn't happen often, and there isn't typically a whiteout blizzard or anything.. but it Can happen. I've seen snowfall in the Summer on high mountain passes. Just a bit, you slow down and drive through it and it passes.

Google results:

https://www.google.com/search?q=where+d ... -serp#ip=1

Not historical as far as I can tell, but this is a neat interactive map to see where it's snowing live everywhere in BC:

https://governmentofbc.maps.arcgis.com/ ... ac6793bd2e

Zoom in on the South West corner of the mainland (not Vancouver Island to the West towards the ocean) just above the US border and you'll see the little patch of land that Metro Vancouver is on.. the greenest postage stamp in the entire country all Winter. Almost everywhere else gets covered in snow for several months while we deal with grey skies and minor flooding for the most part.

So here's a question that's as basic as you can get, but I honestly don't know the answer:

Do Australians refer to this time of the year (ie December right now) as 'Winter' or 'Summer'? Hopefully you can see why I'm asking this. Maybe there are clues in the earlier parts of this thread, but I haven't had time to read it yet.