YOU wouldn't think it looking outside this morning and given the magnificent weather at the weekend, but snow is on the way for Ballarat on Tuesday as one of the more powerful cold fronts of the year bears down on the city.
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Early August is traditionally a time where snow can fall (as we saw last year when the white powder blanketed the nearby mountains), but Tuesday's snow is likely to fall in the heart of the city.
The Bureau of Meteorology has predicted snow as low as 400m above sea-level on Tuesday.
Putting that into perspective, Mount Buninyong peaks at 745m, Warrenheip about 715m, Ballarat airport is 437m and Ballarat city is 435m - that should mean snow for everyone!
For Ballarat the snow flurries are expected to begin around dawn and be interspersed with the odd sunny break.
Tuesday looks like a traditional squally day, with snow showers likely to fall throughout the day with the heaviest likely around lunch time.
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Bureau of Meteorology duty forecaster Christie Johnson said at this stage it was not known if the snow would settle on the ground, but it should make for some good viewing.
"It wont be the most powerful in terms of winds, but it is one of the coldest outbreaks of the year," Ms Johnson said.
"We had some snow at Mount Macedon in April and we had several centimetres around this time last year in Ballarat.
"For Ballarat, most of the snowfalls will be on Tuesday and into the early hours of Wednesday morning, then we expect the snow level to lift to 1200-1300m for the rest of the week.
"We will start to get the cold air coming in the early hours around dawn, will stay quite cold through the evening.
"It looks like a classic outbreak where the cloud is cellular and it looks like a honeycomb on the satellite radar. We might see some sunny breaks in between cold, hail showers and the potential snow."
All up, the temperature is not expected to climb above six degrees for the day. Historically our coldest ever August day is 4.3 degrees which occurred on August 8, 1960.
While we won't promote heading outside given current statewide restrictions, the fact is we're not quite in lockdown yet and students will be home from school on Tuesday, so let's hope mother nature puts on a show for us.
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