Winter In Tasmania

For those of you who don’t know, Tasmania is the small island that lies off the south east coast of mainland Tasmania. The next stop south of Tasmania is Antarctica so it is rather exposed. Many years ago a politician named it ‘the island state.’ (What a genius). It is by far the smallest state of Australia with a population of approximately 600,000 people.

Despite its’ exposure, for some reason Tasmania doesn’t experience the extreme cold weather that is experienced by the southern mainland states bought about by blasts of cold air from Antarctica. Having said this, the south of the state where our capital Hobart is located experiences temperatures a few degrees colder than the north of the state.

Mainland Australia experiences massive floods, gale force winds which cause havoc to houses and on roads and large amounts of snow. Don’t get me wrong, Tasmania experiences these things but they are not as severe. It snows in small isolated pockets but its’ not the ‘real’ snow that I remember as a child in Scotland. Snowfall is so isolated and rare that it makes the news(!). The photo below is of Mount Wellington with Hobart in the foreground capped by snow in winter. Not a very common sight.

I live in the city of Burnie, located on Tasmanias far north west coast. Due to the fact that Burnie is completely unprotected from the strong westerly winds, these winds are almost a daily occurrence in winter. The photo below was taken last week by some brave (and cold) person near the Burnie wharf.

The lack of extremes of winter in Tasmania also apply to the summer.

All things being equal, weather wise, I think that Tasmania is the best state in Australia.