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A blast of Antarctic winds created snow in Stanley and Albury last night and left a maelstroms-worth of havoc in Victoria with felled trees the norm in much of the state.
Snow falling at the Stanley Pub is almost a local annual determination of just how cold a winter is happening in the North East.
The publicans had some fun last night taking video and building a little snowman on one of their outside tables.
Albury man Chris Doherty sent in a picture from the Albury Airport where he said there was also a bit of frosty stuff last night.
Higher in the mountains a near-tragedy was averted when rescue teams found an 8-year-old boy who went missing at Falls Creek.
Police said the boy, who has autism and doesn’t speak, had been out with his family at 3pm tobogganing.
He went missing and the combined effort of police, SES, ski patrol, businesses and community members helped locate the boy a few hours afterwards close to Rocky Valley Creek.
The boy had slight hypothermia but was later released.
There were wind gusts up to 96 km/h at Falls Creek yesterday and also 5cm of snowfall.
Rocky Valley Creek runs parallel to the road up to Falls Creek:
Mount Beauty police Sergeant Charlie Duncan said it had been an amazing coming together of the Falls Creek Village to mobilise to find the boy.
“It’s a pretty unbelievable story, it’s well worth a mention the circumstances there last night had all the tell-tale signs of a potential tragedy, credit to the community for how quick they kicked in en masse and activated a search for the young fella,” he said.
“Even the resort manager CEO was out in his snow-gear searching, the child was found by two of the senior managers I think.
“It was incredible.”
Sgt Duncan said for the uninitiated the conditions were horrific and it was a relief to have a good news story.
The police officer said snow has fallen down to about 400m which means anyone heading to Falls Creek needs to be prepared to put on snow chains as soon as they hit Cranky Charlie.
“Drivers certainly need to carry serviceable chains, and fit them to their vehicle, and fit them as directed by the signage.”
Back in Albury, Connor Smith was driving last night when he came across a felled tree on Kemp Street which he took a video and photos of.
Last night a man aged in his 20s flipped his car when it struck a fallen tree near Koetong on the Murray Valley Highway.
He was treated by Victorian paramedics for head injuries and taken to Albury Base Hospital in a stable condition.