When it comes to weather, Australia is truly a land of extremes and this Wednesday will show just how variable a summer's day can be across this vast country. As parts of western Queensland swelter in 45 degree heat during Wednesday afternoon, snowflakes could be falling in Tasmania. While a stagnant pool of hot air produces severe to extreme heatwave conditions in Queensland this week, a cold front will clip the nation's southeast on Wednesday. The air behind this front will be cold enough to cause snow above an elevation of about 1300 metres in Tasmania's central highlands on Wednesday. This week's contrasting weather may seem unusual, although such large fluctuations in temperature across Australia are not uncommon during summer. The distance from the bottom of Tasmania to the top of Cape York Peninsula in Queensland is roughly 3,700 kilometres. This distance is about as the same as travelling from Toronto to Costa Rica and if you flew this far over Europe, you could get from Norway to Egypt. Australia's large size allows it to lie across three of our planet's four main climate zones: the tropics, subtropics and the temperate zone. So while friends living in Longreach and Liawenee will be regaling about different types of weather on Wednesday, it won't be anything either of their towns have not experienced before.