(Not) the weather report.

Just a quick check in.  I handed in one of those nasty assignments Monday and had my last exam of the semester yesterday (I need 86% for a high distinction, I think I’ve got about 92%, time will tell).  Now there’s only a 2000 word essay between me and a 3 month break.  So I’ll be brief.

What’s up with the weather around here?

Yesterday it was dead still all day and over 30 degrees celcius (86F) here. 

1000km (600mi) south there were roaring winds and wild fires. 

Another 1000km south they had snow.  SNOW!  It’s 2 weeks until summer and it snowed.

But that was yesterday…

Today… it snowed 300km (180mi) from here, and right here it only go up to 23 degrees C (73F) and the roaring winds are here.  35kph (22mph) average with gusts up to 55kph (34mph).

But that’s not the worst of it.  We have a relative humidity of less than 20% to partner the huge winds.  And they’re teaming up to keep a grass fire moving through the local pine forest and grasslands. 

As far as fires go it’s small and it can’t go far.  The wind is blowing offshore and the fire is only about 15km (9mi) from the coast, so we’re only going to lose about 200,000 acres.  Once the fire hits the coast it’s got to jump across the Pacific Ocean before it can do any more damage.  That’s not much comfort for the 3000 homes that are between the fire and ocean though.

As an indication of how thick the smoke is coming off the fire, I’ve attached a weather radar image that is supposed to show rainfall intensity.  The smoke is so thick that it is actually registering on the radar image.  The fire is the white patch in the middle towards the top under the words Maroochydore and Caloundra.  The fire is burning south west of Caloundra and the wind is blowing from the south west.