Happy kangaroos frolic in wintry Australian wonderland

It appears kangaroos love the snow

A large group of kangaroos jumped around in a snow-covered field on Aug. 10 in rural Curraweela, New South Wales. (Video: Storyful)

It looks like a peaceful, snowy scene in a nondescript rural field. A cascade of confetti-like snowflakes falls, and a flat landscape stretches out into the distance. Perhaps it’s the Great Plains … maybe Kansas?

If Kansas had kangaroos, that is.

The jovial scene was captured Saturday in New South Wales, Australia. The video comes from Curraweela, population 47, about 90 miles west-southwest of Sydney. Queensland Country Life reported that Tumut, a community 100 miles farther southwest, saw its heaviest snowfall in more than 20 years. Some spots in the Snowy Mountains saw more than three feet of snow; the snow line dropped to nearly 1,000 feet elevation.

Much of the Tablelands plateau got at least a few inches thanks to a strong low-pressure system that moved through late last week. It threaded the needle up the Bass Strait between Tasmania and southeastern Australia, lashing the higher elevations of New South Wales and Victoria with strong winds and snow squalls. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology reported temperatures Saturday running five to nine degrees below average across southeast Australia in the wake of the winter cyclone.

The snow is a welcome sight for many Australians. Much of southeast Australia has seen its driest 15 months on record.

Our latest #DroughtStatement confirms rainfall deficiencies are persisting across large parts of Aus. https://t.co/PBNicDRu2U So, how do we determine which areas are in 'serious' or 'severe' deficiency? Find out in our new #drought explainer blog & video https://t.co/jy7l2TqINn pic.twitter.com/ITQf6ewbxH

— Bureau of Meteorology, Australia (@BOM_au) August 7, 2019

The bureau says climate change is worsening drought because of a “shift in the track of rain-bearing fronts so they now occur further south.” That sweeps more systems offshore, over the ocean.

Snow is not uncommon in Australia during the winter, though it did confuse some on social media, who used the footage to try to argue against the reality of human-caused global warming.