A cold front brought on by icy conditions and a late week snow dump set the tone for a chilly long weekend across the Hunter.
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Murrurundi recorded its coldest day last Thursday - a maximum temperature of 3.2 degrees, according the NSW Bureau of Meteorology - and like the Barrington Tops, saw between eight and 10 inches of snow fall.
Despite warnings from police, Upper Hunter Shire Council, the Forestry Corporation and National Parks for snow chasers to stay away from the Tops this season due to access issues, long weekend day-trippers flocked to spots that received a heavy dusting late last week.
BoM forecaster Neale Fraser said while it did not snow across the long weekend, it had remained as it was "quite cold and the sun doesn't have much grunt to it".
"It will start to warm up a little bit from Tuesday and into Wednesday. It will still be chilly winter conditions but above average temperatures," she said.
The BoM is forecasting possible snow for the Tops at the end of the week. Scone, Singleton and Muswellbrook can expect mild weather throughout the week. Showers are expected to fall in Scone from Wednesday through to the weekend.
Barrington Tops Forest Road from Gloucester remains closed due a "dangerously unstable section" caused by the March flooding. While access to the Tops from Scone is open, Upper Hunter Shire Council's acting director of infrastructure services, Phillip Hood, said the unsealed road section is "not designed for large amounts of traffic, even at the best of times".
"The unsealed road section is steep, narrow and winding, and ice and snow can make driving here extremely dangerous, even for 4WDs," he said.
It was an otherwise moistly quiet long weekend however emergency services were called to a Merriwa home on Saturday night on reports of an accident involving an 18-month-old girl. The girl suffered burns to her hands after she fell into an open fire on a property. She was airlifted to Westmead Children's Hospital in a stable condition for further treatment.