temp ex
Adrian Van Beek and his family decided to escape the hot Brisbane summer and take a holiday in Hobart but when they arrived, they were hit by opposite extremes.

Hobart's temperatures spiked at 40C last Friday, making it the hottest day since 1899.

"On the first day, we'd planned to go up the mountain, but it was so hot that we couldn't," Mr Van Beek told Nine.com.

The next day, Mr Van Beek and family set off to enjoy a cooler day only to get caught in major snow fall and temperatures of -1C on Mount Wellington overlooking Hobart.


"When we drove up we saw there was snow already on the trees and on the grass, and then this cloud just came over us and we couldn't see anything, it was completely white, and 10 minutes later it was snowing," he said.

"We were able to pick up the snow and throw it at each other."

For their first trip to Hobart, it wasn't what the Van Deek family had in mind.

"We were lost for words," he said.

"Our motivation to come down here was that temperatures in Brisbane during summer are hot anyway but excessively hot this year so we thought we'd head south and enjoy the weather down here."

Temperatures of 40C are equally as unseasonal, with an average February high of 22C.

"It was absolutely unexpected," he said.

"I expected it to be cool, but did I expect it to be minus one? No. Did I expect it to be 40C? Absolutely not."