The Big Wet

[elantra]

^^^ watching the game on TV, not actually at the game !

[brumby33]

Whilst Summer got off to a slow start last December, boy oh boy, someone turned up the throttle.

Here we are in the end of 2nd week of March and still getting 38's at 4pm in the arvo here in Albury.

Yesterday I had to work till about 3PM and so took the motorcycle as I can keep it under cover all day, got on the bike around 3PM and the temp on the dash was 41C i had a 4 season Jacket on but it had good ventilation flaps that can roll down to let through air but nothing was going to cool this thing down....lucky i don't have far to go, only 5kms but if i was riding my bicycle in that, don't know if I'd ever make it home before melting.

I began commuting on the Vivente a few weeks back but it's just too bloody hot, if I take the car it's like an oven as i can't park it under cover so I'm taking the Motorcycle for that reason only.

Hopefully the heat will die down towards the end of this Month and i'll resume commuting, I'd probably lost all of my fitness but i'll take it easy. I wanted to go for a ride today but by 2pm, it'll be back in the high 30's again so i'm not going to punish myself. I like to go out all day and discover new locations so unless I'm out by 5am (not gunna happen on my only day off) i needed my beauty sleep

brumby33

[MichaelB]

…….
Similar here in Radelaide

36 Degrees today (fri 8th March)
40 on Sat
39 on Sun
38 on Mon (Pub Hol)
34 on Tue
33 on Wed
28 on Thur.

Still no rain since 27th Jan. Keeping garden green for sale is gonna cost a motza in water ....

Now watching the A-League game, which is in Adelaide tonight
The commentary team says that the start of the game was delayed by half an hour, due to heat.

Someone said that the heat was dissipated by a “downpour” an hour or 2 ago.
Which prompted another commentator to say that only someone used to living in the “desert” would describe it as a downpour !

We had some water that fell out of the cloud. I think it was about 1 drop per sq metre. For 2 minutes.

The official records still show 0.0mm of rainfall.

Thursday forecast shows a 25% chance of at least 1mm ....

[elantra]

Easter is traditionally the end of the wet season up here (Northern NSW and Southern Qld)

It’s part of the urban folklore up these ways that if you go away at Easter then be prepared for mud, and rain, and leeches etc.

Well this year there hasn’t been as much rain as usual, well so far only about half an inch, if that.
But there is heaps and heaps of mud, because it’s been an unprecedentedly heavy rainfall through most of a (hot) summer.
And also seen a few leeches.
And a gazillion toads.
Haven’t see many snakes recently, perhaps it’s been too wet or too hot for them.

The wet has had all sorts of other effects too.
Every building has some mould on it.
Roads have bathtub sized potholes in them.
Streams are visibly full and rivers look more dirty and muddy than usual.

But hopefully there are no nasty weather surprises left in store before the dry cool weather arrives.



Wollumbin Peak (Mt Warning) is like a giant weather barometer. If you can’t see any of it, it’s raining, if the top is clouded over then it’s gonna rain very soon, and if it’s got no feather on it then it might not rain for a few more days.

The above pic is the access road to the base of Wolllumbin.
This bridge has been washed away many times over the years.
The water level is higher than average and the water colour is brownish from persistent wet weather.
The big concrete slab was in place of the wooden slabs until the slab got washed off its pylons in the 2022 flood. All 50 tonnes of it
Climate change is a bitch.

[open roader]

The BIG DRY has ended here in SW Vic. Here in Birregurra we have received our first rain after 73 consecutive hot, dry days!

I'll not be declaring the resumption of the Big Wet just yet with a modest 15mm of rain today but it means my favourite gravel roads will now be much less dusty and getting packed back down by local traffic after a very prolonged hot dry end to summer left them a horrid mess of deep loose ball bearing like gravel over a concrete hard under base.

Happy Days!