Feels like 4°

I wasn't going to devote a post entirely to the weather but I can't help it. It is the middle of the day and it is 11° outside. I vaguely saw the Tassie boat go passed like a ghost ship.  I know we are supposed to be having a global warming problem but somebody forgot to tell mother nature. We are going out for lunch today and we actually settled on a place that would have a fire going.  I am trying to resist turning on the heating but the guests might have other ideas.

Windy Winter Wakeup

 It was around 1:00am and the clattering and battering had been going on for an hour or so. Is that our gate or rubbish bin or something else pinballing around the yard?  So after getting up and checking around, everything seemed to be in place, so someone down the street had not battened down their hatches.  It was blowy but we have had worse, like when the tiles went flying off the neighbours roof. I took a short video of some inconsistent incoming inclemency.  These blow through fairly quickly but there were a few of them. 

boat

Weather Watch

When the Sun is out it is hot even though the day seems cool.  I did some lawn mowing which started cloudy but an hour later finished hot, sunny and sweaty.  Just a day ago I filmed a huge storm over the You Yangs and within 5 minutes of the end of the clip below we were hit with it as well and the street was awash.  Right now Debbie has submitted her latest big update for PB so we are heading over to the beach for an hour of R&R.

Lemon Wind

 We had a powerful wind hit us yesterday afternoon. The house next door lost some tiles off the roof and items from his deck.  Our deck got hit as well. Generally wedging the cushions and matresses behind the furniture is enough to hold stuff down.  This time everything got lifted off the floor.  I retrieved a matress from the front street and chased a pillow a hundred metres down the side street and it was travelling fast.  The glass on the deck had its rubber lining stripped out by the wind but after an hour I had everything back in place even if I was a bit wet, a lot wet.  Speaking of wet, I have caught up on some video from previous. There were six lemons on the ground so if the wind is knocking them down they must be ready so I picked 20 or so to put out the front.

dangling rubber

Wind Speed

 AT 7:30am I looked out and saw a millpond of a Corio Bay.   It was all lining up.  

Tides at 10:00am around 0.9m  check

Sunshine and temp 23°  check

Wind rated Gentle and 12 km/h  check

Turbidity  Low  check

I get across there at 9:48am and straight away it seems a bit breezier.  Being a Saturday there are quite a few people and my rock table has been taken by someone. The nerve.  The swim was a slapping affair which says the breeze is in your face and so are the waves.  Walking back,  a cold wind struck, like a cool change had come when there wasn't supposed to be one.  People were packing up.  I have attached the wind chart below and we get good data here as Avalon Airport is just across the water. ( PS The air show is back in a few weeks. )  As I type this I have closed the windows as the wind is gusting up to 40km/h.  Wind is my main bugbear for the swim.

You can see the actual dark blue line is 25km/h above predicted.

Whether its weather

 Just got rained on going out to the bin, it is drizzle, wet and slippery. Looking at the Brisbane forecast today is 32° hot sunny and no rain in sight.  We are on the limit of our weight allowance with baby presents and paraphernalia so we are dressing for heat but getting cold and wet this morning.  No phasements.  After the last month we have had nothing can be a problem.

Mud Bloom

 An indoor stamp day if ever there was one.  The rain has not stopped here for 24 hours.  I would call it a steady rain not all that heavy. However what it has done is deepened the creek nearby and maybe it has over flowed again.  You can see the silt fanning out across the bay. We will end up with a delta out there if this keeps up. The lawns here are saturated and they need a trim, maybe they will dry out by the weekend. On the nursing home front the BaptCare people are a good bunch. They are delaying any formal payment requirements for four months so we have that long to clean out the unit, get it renovated and then sold off. I can now unload the video camera since I bought a new multmedia jigumme (technical term). 

Storm Cloud

We have a good view of all the weather here and this cloud is no exception. The photo in the previous post had no size comparison to us humans on the ground but the video does give a good idea of what was coming. There was copius lightening which I seemed miss most of but the thing you could not miss was the lady in red. Why was a lady all dolled up in red, walking around under a black storm cloud, you may well ask? Maybe she barracks for Essendon.

Too Cool

 I was doing a few stamps just now and it said 11° on my computer screen.  I went downstairs and put my UGG boots on and also checked the actual outside temperature from our weather station.  That one said 13°  so at least it was two degrees better.  I was supposed to try for another increase in bicycle distance today but that is not happening. The creeks going out into the bay have a muddy water streak from the incessant rain at the moment, not sure if that will be seen in the attached photo. Another good stamp day. At least there is no wind.

Weather Wind

 We are on a high spot here and it makes it interesting when the watery weather blows thru. I spied one woman walking the dogs when she got a squall full on. Those dog walkers stop for nothing. There was another guy who got out doing some kite surfing before the rain came. There were some big jumps at the turn of each leg.  PS our lemon trade is now up to the third tray full and a new commodity has been started with succulent plants, as a line of them has been placed along the front fence.

succulents all in a row

MegaFront

 It may not be Summer but it seems like it when you consider today's perfect blue skies compared to yesterday's almost cyclonic storm front.  I have not seen the water lifted like it was yesterday. We cleared the cobwebs with a late afternoon ride .  Before that it was coordinating two separate Canadian time zone meetings and then two other Australian online meetings.  Attendances are around 50 licencees. Good thing PB was an online business well before Covid came along.

Storm Front

Nothing but blue skies

Weather for Dolphins

 I never did get to ride today. We have one of those outside weather sensors and right now at 3:00 pm it is 8° and probably will only go lower from there.  The wind has stopped after three days but the rain has set in.  The garden succulents seem to like the rain and come in many shapes and colours. The newest one here is dolphins.  They are still in the pot although I stuck one in the ground which had broken off.

A passing storm

Emerging Sun

Dolphin close up

A pot of dolphins

Perfecto

After three days of rain and 8 weeks of stay at homes, you need to grab that good weather day and get out.  I don't think we have had a calmer day and I know tomorrow wont be the same.  We tested out the sore knee using the Drysdale circuit however Debbie turned back half way but it was still a good hit out. Sitting on the deck where I could read as I had a book in my hand, was the sublime afternoon.  There are many neighbours ready for a chat, as this configuration is perfect for distance chatter and the acoustics work well.  You could see along way and the streaming gossamer like threads are everywhere.  We tried to look up what they were but couldn't find anything.

Last Night

This morning

along the ride

threads can be made out

Hail and Smoke

Sounds like a TV show but at last the smoke might get swept away with a storm just now which has brought hail as well.  Our gutters are running high but ok and the veggie patch is getting a good dousing. There has been some action there with our first cucumber being picked yesterday and there is a strawberry plant which must have 20 strawberries on it.  I have added an update with this video. I can't believe after all this that the smoke is still here. We have been on the phone to Melbourne and they have blue skies. There is a huge brown halo spreading out from our beach. Dirt Moves.

Cold Smoke

These are the weirdest conditions today. Outside a pall of smoke has settled like a fog. It is a coolish day not getting above 20° but the smoke smell is everywhere.  There is no wind so it is not going away yet.  I did mow some lawns but mostly we are bunkered inside. Last night we saw the supposedly last Star Wars film although I think there is a side story still to go and there is also the TV series that has been recently completed.  The show was appropriately epic to finish off. Star Wars has been going for 43 yar and currently valued at 65 billion so I think Disney got their money's worth when they took over.

Smoke not Fog -  taken at 1:00 pm

taken at 3:00 pm

2020 not so clear

The smoke haze has really come in today from out East.  It is a 30° top today but so far we have stayed in.  The snorkel viewing would be just as grey in the water.  We may wander over late this arvo. We were intending to go to the food trucks at Collendina but they have cancelled today's service. You can see a bit of the haze in these photos and it is gloomy all around.

earlier

                                                                             later

Auction Strategy

I have been targeting Australian dependencies like Norfolk Island and Christmas Island in the online auctions. Three times in a row I was beaten out of the lots I was after, mainly because I was away during the last few days before the auction. It seems that most of the action occurs just beforehand. I had to increase my bids several times beforehand to see these people off.  I put in for three lots thinking I might get one or two but got all three for a total of $270.  There is some serious money spent this way, such as the $44,000 that was spent on each of three lots, consisting of one stamp only. At least I got 3000 stamps for my $270. The first Australian stamp is a halfpenny green Kangaroo and Map. One of these sold for $2742. I have one of these and it looks in better condition.  It is valued in the book at $8.00. Go figure.

I returned to this Lot 11 stamp and found that the valuable thing is the Brisbane post mark in the upper left corner. This is a cancelled to order version of which there were only 18 issued. Hence way more valuable than my paltry $8.00 one.  This valuation stuff requires a black magic knowledge base.

My one must be worth more than $8.00

Weathered

I seem to be talking about the weather a lot in these posts but from our position on the edge you can see what's coming before it gets here. I can't help myself. Today was a shocker. 45kph driving winds depositing dirt and dust into the water and combined with the uprooted sea grass its colour turned brown.  Yet yesterday was crystal clear, so much so that I found a new coral cluster that I had not seen before. I will try to find it again with a camera. Even still I went down to the beach today but it was a wasted effort.

yesterday low tide clear

today high tide black

Meteorology

We are getting some neighbours over this afternoon for a bit of a chinwag and a look at some of our Switzerland bike riding. I took a short video of some of today's weather. Hopefully they will time their walk in between the stuff shown below.  We have even put the heating on.

Never Boring Weather

Cold Front

We drove out of Tulla into a cold front but thirty minutes later we emerged into some blue sky. That is the reality of it all.  The temperature was 10° but the bonus was that we got onto an earlier flight. Seems that if there is a chance of a delay then they will allow you to go earlier, even though we bought the really cheap tickets. Overall we had a good week away that seemed a lot longer, so having just done 6 weeks away and now 6 days away, maybe the longer versions can be shortened.

Beach yesterday

Planes today