The Big Wet
- elantra
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby elantra » Thu Feb 29, 2024 5:51 pm
It’s been long and hot and wet along much of the east coast.
And now for some disturbing statistics.
In case you missed it in the news this morning-various records for heat have been broken :
https://amp.abc.net.au/article/103522760
Of course, statistics such as this apply to a much greater area of Australia than just Brisbane.
“Brisbane weather” as a generalisation applies with little variation to an area of Australia between Coffs Harbour in the south to Bundaberg in the north.
That’s about 800 km of the east Coast.
And applies roughly 100 km inland along this distance.
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby Andy01 » Thu Feb 29, 2024 8:03 pm
Today got to a feels like of 36° (actual=32.3°), and at 6pm it was still feels like 30°(actual=27.4°). Saturday is predicted to be hotter than today.
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby g-boaf » Thu Feb 29, 2024 10:58 pm
Only 36? We had a 40°C day today, one of the workers here had a reading that said feels like 45°C.
It was extremely hot.
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby mikesbytes » Fri Mar 01, 2024 7:56 am
- elantra
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby elantra » Fri Mar 01, 2024 9:10 am
Yeah Sydney weather is not as good as it used to be.
I remember back in the 1990’s you could get on an aeroplane in steamy hot Brisbane and disembark in Sydney to exactly the same temperature but a lower and much more comfortable humidity level.
And actually enjoy a summers day around and about the Harbour.
Brisbane doesn’t have a nice scenic harbour like Sydney !
A ride on the Citycat boat up and down the Brisbane River is not as big a deal.
Hope your weather improves in Sydney soon.
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby Cycling Wombat » Fri Mar 01, 2024 12:34 pm
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby uart » Fri Mar 01, 2024 1:13 pm
The weather was perfect here in Newcastle for a ride this morning. 23/24 degrees with light cloud cover and no wind or rain. Yeah the humidity is still kinda high, but still a very pleasant ride.
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby Andy01 » Fri Mar 01, 2024 3:48 pm
IMO that is what makes Qld's heat at times like this relentless - the fact that it doesn't "recover" at night and allow the building, roofspace, insulation material, pool water etc to recover or "normalise" overnight. When the temps stay up well in the 20's (and at times with minimum feels like temps of over 30°, everything just saturates and the only way to recover is using AC in quantity, which is costly.
Many other places (like Perth for example) get hot (over 40° at times) but generally cool down at night (Freemantle Doctor), so everything starts again the next day - instead of just accumulating.
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby fat and old » Fri Mar 01, 2024 5:12 pm
Or Melbourne. Gets hot 35-40 deg and then 10 minutes later is 21 deg.
- elantra
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby elantra » Fri Mar 01, 2024 10:35 pm
Good ole Brisbane is consistently mediocre weather right through the Summer (and also most of autumn)fat and old wrote: ↑Fri Mar 01, 2024 5:12 pmOr Melbourne. Gets hot 35-40 deg and then 10 minutes later is 21 deg.
30 degrees most days. Some days a bit more, some days a bit less.
At least you know exactly how hot it will be.
You can get on a plane in Brisbane knowing that if it’s 30 degrees today, it will still be 30 degrees tomorrow.
In Melbourne it can be 40 degrees one day and 20 degrees the next.
Probably averages out at 30 degrees in summer but at least some days will be pleasantly cool.
I can’t imagine how I would cope living in a city on or near the equator, where it is usually 30 degrees or more on most days for the whole year !!!
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby Anrai » Tue Mar 05, 2024 5:32 pm
I can count the 30+ days on my hands but when they come they're drying the place out.
Last week I had to call in the beginnings of a fire I found on the abandoned railway next to the cycleway in Hobart.
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby brumby33 » Tue Mar 05, 2024 5:42 pm
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby open roader » Tue Mar 05, 2024 9:03 pm
Tomorrow marks 50 consecutive days without rain here. The countryside has rapidly flipped from 5 hues of verdant green to 17 shades of !! BAN ME NOW FOR SWEARING !!. January was mostly endless warm dry week after week, February has been seemingly endless hot dry weather week after week. Now March continues the February theme. After 4 years of wet summers here it's not a surprise but still a slap in the face nonetheless.
Gravel roads are mostly off limits to me now as they are basically concrete slabs underneath with 3 to 4 inches of ball bearing gravel/sand/grit on top. Foolishly the local Shire has graded many roads bone dry and the lack of rain to settle the freshly graded aggregate has resulted in almighty runs of corrugations too. The less trafficked back roads are still good for gravel riding but from my front gate there is 4+km of diabolical 4 inch deep loose stuff with occasional runs of 6 inch high corrugations to reach an enjoyable (read safe) road to ride on so the road bike are getting a work out at present.
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby brumby33 » Tue Mar 05, 2024 10:12 pm
Sounds like you might need a Fat Bike in that type of gravelopen roader wrote: ↑Tue Mar 05, 2024 9:03 pmThe Big Wet is just a memory down here in SW Vic.
Tomorrow marks 50 consecutive days without rain here. The countryside has rapidly flipped from 5 hues of verdant green to 17 shades of !! BAN ME NOW FOR SWEARING !!. January was mostly endless warm dry week after week, February has been seemingly endless hot dry weather week after week. Now March continues the February theme. After 4 years of wet summers here it's not a surprise but still a slap in the face nonetheless.
Gravel roads are mostly off limits to me now as they are basically concrete slabs underneath with 3 to 4 inches of ball bearing gravel/sand/grit on top. Foolishly the local Shire has graded many roads bone dry and the lack of rain to settle the freshly graded aggregate has resulted in almighty runs of corrugations too. The less trafficked back roads are still good for gravel riding but from my front gate there is 4+km of diabolical 4 inch deep loose stuff with occasional runs of 6 inch high corrugations to reach an enjoyable (read safe) road to ride on so the road bike are getting a work out at present.
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- elantra
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby elantra » Wed Mar 06, 2024 2:28 pm
Yikes !open roader wrote: ↑Tue Mar 05, 2024 9:03 pmThe Big Wet is just a memory down here in SW Vic.
Tomorrow marks 50 consecutive days without rain here. The countryside has rapidly flipped from 5 hues of verdant green to 17 shades of !! BAN ME NOW FOR SWEARING !!. January was mostly endless warm dry week after week, February has been seemingly endless hot dry weather week after week. Now March continues the February theme. After 4 years of wet summers here it's not a surprise but still a slap in the face nonetheless.
Gravel roads are mostly off limits to me now as they are basically concrete slabs underneath with 3 to 4 inches of ball bearing gravel/sand/grit on top. Foolishly the local Shire has graded many roads bone dry and the lack of rain to settle the freshly graded aggregate has resulted in almighty runs of corrugations too. The less trafficked back roads are still good for gravel riding but from my front gate there is 4+km of diabolical 4 inch deep loose stuff with occasional runs of 6 inch high corrugations to reach an enjoyable (read safe) road to ride on so the road bike are getting a work out at present.
That would be very debilitating.
As they say- water is life, and when things go dry it starts to play tricks with our minds.
Not good ones.
Depending on your circumstances, now would be a good time to plan an intestate trip to Qld or NSW !
Everything looks very green up here, well everything within about 200 km of the coast.
There’s even muddy trails.
But we can’t guarantee that this extraordinary profusion of greenness will last much into winter.
Depends on the weather of course !
Some places up here almost never go “brown” even during periods of drought.
South of Brisbane are the craggy basaltic outcrops of the McPherson Ranges, including its offshoots like Wollumbin (Mt Warning), Tambourine, Springbrook etc.
These Mtns are massive rain generators but even when the rains fail, there are complex underground water channels which (hopefully) never fail.
So the various rivers that flow off these mountains (such as the Nerang, Tweed, Richmond and Condamine stay well supplied with water.
Apologies for the digression, I hope that things improve in SW Victoria and a bit of therapeutic moisture improves the condition of your trails
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby DavidS » Wed Mar 06, 2024 3:29 pm
Lawn was green for a while there back in December, rare for our lawn, but patches of brown again now.
DS
- MichaelB
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby MichaelB » Wed Mar 06, 2024 3:41 pm
We haven't recorded any rain since 27th January.open roader wrote: ↑Tue Mar 05, 2024 9:03 pmThe Big Wet is just a memory down here in SW Vic.
Tomorrow marks 50 consecutive days without rain here. ...
And nothing scheduled till after the 12th March. If we get there, that'll mark 45 days without.
In 2024, temps have been +0.7, +1.6, and +3.8 (to date) for Jan, Feb & March respectively.
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby mikesbytes » Thu Mar 07, 2024 11:47 am
- elantra
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby elantra » Thu Mar 07, 2024 11:56 pm
Yes so true…mikesbytes wrote: ↑Thu Mar 07, 2024 11:47 amAustralia - a country than can have bush fires and floods at the same time...
For many people the memories of flood and fire events are probably still close to the surface.
Interestingly, I have spent much of my life living in places that historically suffer floods but not fires (Queensland and northern NSW)
So the fires of 2019/2019 were something that I had never seen before and I’ve gotta say it was quite a shock.
In Southern Qld there were serious and destructive fires in places that In recorded history had NEVER had fires before.
Places like Binna Burra and Canungra to name but a few. It was quite a shock when these places were ravaged by fires. The environmental damage was extreme, including native animals injured or killed.
Also in these areas the human damage to homes, businesses, and public recreation parks.
Later, when bigger fires affected areas to the south including New England Tablelands, Coffs Coast, South Coast NSW and Gippsland, and lives were lost in these areas, it was easier to understand how frightening and catastrophic a situation it was.
Up in northern NSW/ southern Qld right now the environmental consequences of a very wet summer are evident.
Effects of a heavy wet season include a current plague of Toads. I haven’t seen this many Toads for decades.
And the grass beside the roads - it’s about 4 feet high and makes the roads seem narrower !
And the roads are full of potholes of course.
At least the heat seemed to be dissipating now. It is truly amazing how comfortable a maximum temperature of 28 degrees feels compared with most days through summer which were 31 degrees.
Just 3 degrees makes a really huge difference.
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby piledhigher2 » Fri Mar 08, 2024 12:07 am
Speak for yourself, Melbourne's facing a forecast of 28, 39, 38, 38 off the back of over a month of no rain, in March.
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby warthog1 » Fri Mar 08, 2024 8:32 am
I live in Bendigo just up the road. Been a pretty mild summer imo. Has to be a few warm days at some point. Back to the cold soon.piledhigher2 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 08, 2024 12:07 amSpeak for yourself, Melbourne's facing a forecast of 28, 39, 38, 38 off the back of over a month of no rain, in March.
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby jasonc » Fri Mar 08, 2024 9:28 am
the humidity has definitely dropped off making it more pleasant. still a bit further to drop (hopefully) over the next couple of weeks
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby MichaelB » Fri Mar 08, 2024 3:09 pm
Similar here in Radelaidepiledhigher2 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 08, 2024 12:07 amSpeak for yourself, Melbourne's facing a forecast of 28, 39, 38, 38 off the back of over a month of no rain, in March.
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 ....
- elantra
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Re: The Big Wet
Postby elantra » Sat Mar 09, 2024 8:37 pm
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 !
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