news, local-news,

The first snow of 2017 has fallen in Tasmania on a weekend where parts of Australia sweltered in catastrophic heat. Light snow fell at Mount Mawson where the summit temperature fell to -0.8 degrees on Sunday morning. On the same day NSW faced “catastrophic” fire conditions worse than those on Victoria’s Black Saturday in 2009. On the North-West Coast the temperature reached 17 degrees on Sunday. As NSW faces the "worst possible fire conditions" in its history with 'extreme' and catastrophic' warnings in place across large slabs of the state, RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said the situation was as "bad as it gets". Commissioner Fitzsimmons warned winds were expected to sweep through scorched parts of mid to northern NSW on Sunday.

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