fantasia_kitty. Looking at the maps, and assuming the information I gathered in High School hasn't fermented in this ol' brain I might help you with your question.
With the difference in hemispheres, we in the U.S. being north, and New Zealand, and Australia being in the south, it would be unlikely that the same weather system would reach both. Much of the weather that comes across the U.S. comes from the North Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico. Watching the radar, or satalite images you will see that many of the storms move in a counter-clockwise motion in the Norther Hemisphere, while they move in a clockwise motion in the Southern.
Now there may be some systems which "hug" the equator. Whether they actually cross over I honestly don't know.
I hope that helps.

Sorry Puddleglum, I didn't word my question very well. I know our fronts here in the Northern Hemisphere don't reach the Southern Hemisphere. I was wondering if fronts in Australia cross the Tasman Sea down to New Zealand and vice versa, or do they fizzle out over the water and have entirely separate weather systems? Kind of like the Rocky Mountains cause the western side of the USA/Canada to have different weather from the rest of the USA/Canada.

Today has been a bundle up in blankets kind of a day. It's 7F outside. Brrr....

I was wondering if fronts in Australia cross the Tasman Sea down to New Zealand and vice versa, or do they fizzle out over the water and have entirely separate weather systems?

That's what I thought you meant. I'd say the Tasman and the Pacific Ocean between them make New Zealand almost entirely separate. It depends on the weather system though.

Most of our weather comes from a westerly direction, or it comes in from the south east & gets deflected westward again by the mountains. Unlike Queensland with its cyclones, we don't get many huge weather systems from the east, apart from El Nino and La Nina, which affect Indonesia and Australia. I'm not sure about how NZ fares during these cyclical phases of the Southern Oscillation Index, in which we can get the opposite sort of weather to Peru and Chile in South America.

You've gotta love living in the secondary snow belt of a great lake. . . the weather people really can't tell you much of anything about snowstorms that are coming your way. First they said 1 - 6 inches of snow will fall on Thursday. Then they said 5 - 9 inches are possible. Then they said that our area may only receive 0.2 inches of snow. . . . . . . . .

It's kinda frustrating and exciting at the same time

Happy New Year!

Hope you get a little more snow than 0.2 inches, Digs.

It's interesting reading about Southern Hemisphere weather patterns, wagga. North American weather also moves predominantly from west to east, though influenced by big mountain chains such as the Rockies. Generally, here in the plains our colder weather comes from the northwest and the hot weather from the south. (I imagine that's reversed Down Under).

December goes down here as the 18th coldest on record, with an average temperature of 12.4F/-10.9C.

But International Falls lives up to its billing as "The Nation's Icebox" : its average for the month was -4.1F/-20.1C. It had 8 nights that were colder than -30F/-34.4C.

We were supposed to get a trace of snow last night. We got more like 2". But somehow I missed the bit about the plummeting temperatures yesterday evening. We were out to dinner and when we walked in it wasn't so bad, but when we walked out, it was awful. It is 11F/-12C this morning. Tomorrow and Saturday it's supposed to warm back up to 40Fish/4C or so, but then another cold front is coming through and the high on Monday is 12F/-12C.

Yeah, it's been chilly here too, with temps in the teens and wind chills below zero. We're getting a lot of snow from this storm. Currently, we've gotten about 3 inches with no signs of stopping. They said we could get up to six.

I see they're talking about your lake effect snow on the Weather Channel, Digs.

It may reach 0F/-17C for a high here today. Good old Embarrass, Minnesota was -46F/-43C this morning.

But the forecast for the weekend might stretch the limits for polar bears like me. The bottom falls out beginning Saturday night, and by Monday morning it could be -27F/-33C. The predicted *high* Monday is -14F/-26C. Brrr!!

I'll just have to keep this in mind when it's pushing 100F next July.

yikes! That sure is cold weather stargazer *shivers at the thought of it*

We've lost most of our snow in a meltdown we had, and it hasn't come back yet, but the cold decided to stick around. I think I'm the only person in my family who doesn't mind that there is hardly any snow We do have a ton of ice, which makes everything super slippery. The road near our home hasn't been cleared at all, so it's just made up of solid ice. It's a little dangerous, but it's nothing new, each year we have a layer of ice on the road that is around 2 inches (I'm serious) and it is simply a matter of waiting till spring so it will melt

Glad to hear some of our other Northern NarniaWebbers will be enjoying the white stuff this holiday.

Yes, indeed. This was such a wonderful treat this year. I just hope this means the winter won't end overly early.

Christmas Eve was snowy, but cleared up later in the evening, which allowed for some FANTASTIC views of the night sky. I spent a good twenty minutes out under the stars by myself just singing Christmas carols

Lovely, so lovely!

Sorry your camping plans had to be cancelled because of the rain, coracle.

I have fond memories of dark Christmas skies with snow crunching underfoot.

Mmmm, yes. How I love even just the sound of that sentence. Glad you were able to view the ISS and the Tiangong! We have had a multitude of overcast skies here, but once in a while on my walks, there is a brief break, and I can glimpse something of the night sky beyond the clouds. One evening last week, the eastern sky was clear just before a large cloud mass moved in, and it was gorgeous seeing Jupiter rising near the Great Hunter lying on his side in the heavens. How come we never tire of such sights?!

Good thing I didn't put away the cold weather gear.

Not for awhile yet.

Glad to hear Christmas Day, itself, wasn't an oven for you, wagga!

*reads the weather pattern discussion with interest*

fantasia, from your weather posts, parts of Kansas seem to be getting a colder and snowier winter than usual. Yes or no?

Currently, we've gotten about 3 inches with no signs of stopping. They said we could get up to six.

♫ ♪ It doesn't show signs of stopping
And we've got some corn for popping ...
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! ♪ ♫

Good old Embarrass, Minnesota was -46F/-43C this morning.

(Gotta love that name )

I'll just have to keep this in mind when it's pushing 100F next July.

Me too! Let's remind each other, shall we, when the temps are unbearably hot and humid this summer that we were able to enjoy some very cold weather and lots of snow in December and January?

Wow, wrose, be careful around all that ice!

So, here in Ontario, we have settled in to frigid temperatures, as in -35C/-31F with the wind chill. Light snow has been falling all day. In fact, I can't remember a recent winter when we've had to brush off the car so often from snowfall. It's snowy weather like it used to be, wonderful! Saturday and Sunday are leaping up to around the freezing mark, with snow overnight Sunday, then dropping cold again. Now, this is winter!

So, here we have settled in to frigid temperatures, as in -35C/-31F with the wind chill. Light snow has been falling all day. Now, this is winter!

Makes me thankful I'm on vacation in Florida and not at home. Currently the suns out, but we've had light showers for most of the day. But It's still a beautiful 80 degrees out so I can't really complain! Not looking forward to returning to the bitter cold.

Have fun in FL, Impending Doom! Honest to say, though, I'm so glad to be here in all this snow.

More fell today than appeared to be falling, and the roads became extremely slick and tricky mid-afternoon. But it's really beautiful out, visually. My walk tonight was filled with that wonderful crunch-crunch-crunch on the dry, powdery snow and the hushed stillness of the air that descends after a snowfall. ♥ But, boy, is it coooold!!! Still, I'd rather have this any day than hot summer weather.

Yeah, the local weather people handled this storm very badly. They hyped it up like it was going to be massive, when in reality we probably got less than four inches of snow. That being said, I've heard that the roads were terrible, despite the fact that there was PLENTY of warning that this storm was coming. . . . comes from living in the state that cares as much about its roads as it does its students

I would like to holiday somewhere and have a snowy winter one day. Though I would most likely freeze to death. Since you will fight to find temps in the negatives anytime of the year in most parts if not all of Australia.

Though what you guys call a heat wave........

British Weather Services expert Jim Dale said: "We're going to hit the magical figure of 90F (32C)."

I like how different countries look at weather. 32c is a nice summers day(not too hot) here.

Yeah, as far as I'm concerned, anything above 80F / 27C is too hot. . . I know that you Australians probably gasp at that. . . but then again, when I say that I don't even wear a jacket outside until it gets into the low 30's F / ~ 0C you'd probably also gasp.

I think that we ended up with just under 4 inches of snow from yesterday's storm. A lot of parts North of us got a lot more than that.

Temps this week are going to be frigid. Our high on Tuesday is -3F/-19C and our low will be -15F/-26C