Australia's Snowy Mountains Hit 20-Year Low For Snowfall - ABC NSW

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The Snowy Mountains this year has had the lowest snowfalls in 20 years. National Parks and Wildlife Service climatologist Ken Green says the Snowy Mountains are ideal for monitoring temperature changes.

Dr Green says it is easy to measure small climate movements because of the region's marginal snowfall compared with other world alpine areas. He says mountain lakes are already showing the effects of higher average world temperatures.

"I have been measuring the rate of break-up of Blue Lake for the past, so many years. It used to break up as late as December. There would still be ice on the lake," he said.

"My measure of whether it is good ice is if I can have lunch in the middle of the lake on ice and I went up on the 21st and the ice has broken up already. This is three weeks earlier than the earliest record of the ice breaking up on Blue Lake."

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/items/200609/1750139.htm?southeastnsw