If you woke up feeling like Pingu fresh from an icy nap in your igloo home, you weren’t alone. Multiple Aussie states and territories are currently enduring blistering winds like we haven’t seen for decades thanks to the cold snap. Planes are being cancelled, nips are frozen hard and it’s just an all-around not-so-fun time to be outside.
Sydney’s kink has to be some light whipping ‘cos wild winds have been lashing us since the weekend.
The chaos has become so out of control that 133 flights across 33 different airlines were delayed and two out of three Sydney airport runways were closed on Monday morning. Clearly someone needs a safe word.
#ALERT: There’s travel chaos at Sydney Airport due to strong winds forcing single runway operations, primarily affecting domestic departures and arrivals.
Passengers are being urged to speak with their airline for further information on cancellations and delays. #9News pic.twitter.com/vpFI7lK4cB
— 9News Sydney (@9NewsSyd) May 7, 2023
“Sydney Airport is experiencing some traffic delays due to increasing westerly winds,” an Airservices Australia spokesperson said.
“This decision is purely weather-related — crosswinds on the parallel runways are up to 30knots.
“Airservices will most likely resume parallel runway operations in the early afternoon, when weather conditions are expected to ease, and winds become southerly.”
All runways at Sydney Airport are expected to open up for use at around 8pm, however the vicious winds aren’t expected to leave us until Wednesday at the earliest.
Too bad if you wanted to leave Sydney and kiss the sunshine — you’ve been fucked by the fickle finger of fate yet again.
To make matters worse, the winds have come with the cold, bringing about one of the coldest Mays in decades for many Aussie states.
Queensland, Tasmania, New South Wales, the ACT and Victoria are currently experiencing the worst of the icy temperatures in this cold snap. Some states even smashed some records. Yay! (I write with frostbitten fingers).
Canberra reached the lowest max temperature in 23 years with a height of 7 degrees (God really hates that place, but I don’t blame her).
Sydney matched its record May low of 7.1 degrees that it hasn’t dipped down to since 1999. And finally, Tasmania broke the record for the coldest May night in the state with a positively icy -0.6 degrees.
Oh, and it’s also SNOWING in NSW. Truly the pretty icing on this ice cream cake.
We have snow! ⛄
As temperatures plunge across NSW, Orange and regions near have been treated to a dusting of snow this afternoon. #9News pic.twitter.com/rhfUi0Vv1W
— 9News Sydney (@9NewsSyd) May 7, 2023
Now more or less vertically stacked to 300 hPa. 😵💫 pic.twitter.com/mBY5NBJero
— Andrew Miskelly (@andrewmiskelly) May 8, 2023
My condolences to anyone who doesn’t have a heater in these trying times, it’s not going to be fun for the next few days.
