Surely this is one of the most asked questions by skiers and boarders during the Australian winter. Unfortunately not too many weather reporters around Australia are skiers, and hence, don't understand this daily fascination with the approaching low pressure system. Unfortunately like most fanciful concepts these are all too often wrong. Usually responsible for dumping a lot of snow over a short period cold outbreaks are relatively common and can even occur during summer. Cold outbreaks are short lived fast moving fronts that will dump snow for one or two days.
Cold outbreaks are common early and late in the season.
They will often drop lots of snow in Tassie, and southern Victoria and may not even reach the more northern resorts. The key for a good season is a few good cut off low pressure systems. During summer the centre of the high pressure systems pass over Tasmania or Victoria resulting in easterly and north westerly winds. During winter the centre of the high pressure systems move north resulting in a stream of west or south westerly winds. In certain conditions a low pressure system will feed cold air into the system and can result in snow falling for a week or more at a time.