It was three am on Saturday. Tom Duff and his wife, Abbi, were wasting no time as they bundled three children into the car and began the hour-and-a-half drive to Barrington Tops for the season's first snowfall.
"We got there just before sunrise," Mr Duff said. "There were little, tiny bits of snow falling from the sky and about an inch on the ground."
The Wallsend local's three children - six-year-old Indiana, five-year-old Korby and baby Luna had been waiting all winter for this adventure.
"We had a fire, cooked some food and just enjoyed the day out," Mr Duff said. "It was exciting."
As snow enthusiasts, the Duff family had been watching the radar for "months" and checking posts in Facebook group Barrington Tops Snow Chasers.
"We usually try to test our luck and find a fall," Mr Duff said. "It has taken a long time this year. It's been really dry."
Without enough moisture in the air for snow to form - signalled by a state-wide El Nino alert - seeing the white powder was a waiting game.
A spokesperson from the Bureau of Meteorology said the Newcastle Herald this season's cold fronts have been "passing to the south during long periods of high pressure."
"This means cold fronts have often lacked sufficient moisture and cool air needed to produce snow showers around Barrington Tops," the spokesperson said.
But the adventure was not the winter wonderland often seen in Barrington Tops photos. Mr Duff said his kids were only able to create "little snowmen" because of the icy conditions.
"The snow turned to ice really quickly and melted away within about four hours or so," he said. "But [the kids] were still throwing snowballs at each other and had fun in it."
The snowfall has come later than usual. By July 2021, snow had hit Barrington Tops three times that winter. 2018 saw a weekend dusting in mid-June after two years of no snow.
Average winter temperatures have remained similar in Barrington Tops across the last five years. The coldest was 18.3 degrees in 2020, while the hottest was 20.5 degrees the year prior.
Mr Duff said the roads were "very quiet" as his family drove and they saw just another two families enjoying the snow.
"It was really nice [to have it to ourselves]," he said.
Newcastle will see light winds and a maximum temperature of 22 degrees for the rest of Sunday before tops of 23 degrees tomorrow. Monday will be mostly sunny with a minimum temperature of nine degrees.
In Lake Macquarie, weather will be similar to the city with a slightly cooler minimum of seven degrees tomorrow. There is just five per cent chance of rain.
