Why Australian ALPS Receive More Snowfall Than Switzerland?

WHEN PEOPLE THINK ABOUT Australia, they often imagine a flat, dry continent, or the beach, ‘reef’ and ‘the rock’. But Australia has a significant and untameable high country, where a different set of Australian legends and traditions were born.

One of the most interesting is that it snows in Australia. Not only does it snow but we get more snow than Switzerland does in an average year. The spectacular and distinctive Australian Alps extend over 1.6 million hectares of public land contained in eleven national parks and nature reserves across Victoria, New South Wales, and the Australian Capital Territory.

This is a fact about Australia that shocks most people who never think about it snowing in Australia but the fact remains that it does. Obviously, the whole continent does not get huge amounts of snowfall but there are areas that get a great deal. These areas are in the mountains, another fact that surprises a lot of people who think of the continent as being very flat.

There are in fact mountains in Australia, while they are not particularly high by the standards that you would find in other countries they do really stand out because the rest of the continent is so flat. The highest peaks are around six thousand feet in height which is plenty high enough to get snowfall in winter. The largest mountain range on the continent is referred to as the Australian Alps and is located near the Capital Region.

Switzerland of course also has mountains and a lot more of them than Australia which raises the question of how it is possible for Australia to get more snow? The answer is that the mountains in Australia are located near the coast while Switzerland is a landlocked country. Coastal regions will always get more precipitation than inland regions and if it is cold enough it will fall as snow. In the mountains of Australia it does get cold enough and as a result a lot of snowfalls.

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