After a quiet and damp weekend here (20mm is better than nothing) the fire count in this region went from 29 down to 23, but with today's expected very strong winds that number could go up again very quickly. :-(

It kicked off here at 13C (felt like 10C) with an expected max of 20C, but with the windchill already knocking 6C off the temp it won't be a nice day outside when that wind really gets up to speed.

Cheers.

Last night there was enough rain over 10min or so to have no effect on the temperature, but bump the humidity up another 15-20%
And then this afternoon a storm went past us without so much as a drop coming down here.

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Grant
Darwin NT

We reached our expected of 20C yesterday, but that wind made it feels like 10C, while it was also a very dusty and smokey day as well (I'll have to vac the floors here again today as I'm skating across the tiles again).

Today got underway here at very 7C (felt like 4C) while 24C is our expected max, but a westerly wind is expected again this afternoon (though not as severe as yesterday thankfully). Our regions fire count only rose by 1 to 24, but there's very little left now to be burnt in this part of the state so all the new action is further down south.

Cheers.

Still cooking & sweating here. I'm not expecting any significant rain till next year.


Just had another look at the BoM's satellite page- from Southern Qld all the way down to almost Victoria (with the odd gap here and there) it's just smoke blowing off the land out to sea...

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Grant
Darwin NT

We here are enjoying another clear and fresh morning, 7C (felt like 5C), though 28C is expected today with a westerly wind arriving by noon, but our region's fire count is now down to 22 and the Torrington State Forest (17km to the NW of here) is now officially out (after about 10 weeks of burning). :-)

A bit more rain would be nice, but it looks like we'll have to put up with 4 days of 30C+ temps before that happens. :-(

[edit] It also looks like I'll finally have to give the yard a mow.

Cheers.

Fires have flared up, again.

"We estimated there are 100 properties directly under threat from this fire and we have 11 appliances in the area."

NSW bushfires burning out of control on outskirts of Sydney prompting evacuation of homes

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Grant
Darwin NT

Well today got to hot too fast hitting 30C (felt like 24C) so I replaced the Ryobi's path edger blade with a new (old 1, a mate of mine made a dozen or so of them 18yrs ago for me) and gave my old elcheapo hardware store brand mower a full service.

If the southerly change doesn't bring in any morning smoke with it (or it clears very early) I'll be finishing off the backyard's mow strips at least.

No rain is expected here until Tuesday at the very leastso I plan on having the yard sort of reasonable by then (depending on the brain to legs communication).

Cheers.

My X51 system just got surged by this crazy thunderstorm in Vellywood, NZ. Leaving it off for now. Going to have to finish building my Genny and get the ups back togeather

My X51 system just got surged by this crazy thunderstorm in Vellywood, NZ. Leaving it off for now. Going to have to finish building my Genny and get the ups back togeather

Sounds like you're getting our weather. Barely had any rain here, let alone a decent storm.

I've actually had to water the lawns- they've pretty much died off. Usually I don't have to water at all from late Sept/ late Oct to late April/ late May.
I think we've had a bout a quarter of our usual rainfall for this point in the Wet season (if we've even gotten that much), and much of that rain was in only 4 falls (2 of them on the same day) instead of the usual showers & storms here & there through the week.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Extremely thick smoke here this morning with this easterly wind as the large fire to the NE of here (that has gone all the way to the sea) and the fire to the SE (that's still trying to make it into Coffs Harbour) have joined together (while Sydney residents think that their little fire to the NW is a "Mega fire"). There's also the chance now that the big fire up here will join up with the big fire west of Port Macquairie and Kempsey. :-(

Hopefully the northerly change will arrive soon and get rid of this smoke so that I can finish mowing before the mercury hits 32C.

Cheers.

Have family over those ways forget where, but were evacuated due to fires. Cleaned my borrowed rig while I waited for the lightening and power surges to stop.

Will upload photos later if I can.

Damn things are dry here.

I've only got an extremely small yard, so the sprinklers are pretty low flow volume. I only water late evening/overnight and generally 2 days in a row, then things are good for 2-3 weeks. Usually i'll water for 3 hours one day & 2 hours the next, and by that time there's water pooling or even some runoff.
I watered for 4 hours yesterday, going for 5 hours today and still there's no not even any water pooling; the ground is just sucking it all up...

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Grant
Darwin NT

We went from a smokey 15C up to 34C (felt like 31C) here today and yesterday's storms (which skirted the village) started a several more fires around here so we were out setting up mains stems and fire hoses around the village again while a couple of water bombing choppers were refuelling down on the oval, but now another lot of storms have hit we're all back under cover (until the fire trucks get back here). We also went from 23 active fire in the region yesterday up to 49 today.

As the rain falls and the lightening flashes all around the temp here has dropped to 20C (feels like 14C) now.

Cheers.

Today got started here at 12C and 31C is our expected max.

We should also find out this afternoon, when the wind picks up, if yesterday's thunderstorms triggered any more fires (it got wild here for a couple of hours, but we only got 1mm out of it) and more thunderstorms are expected this afternoon and into the evening.

NSW Rural Fire Service map shows massive extent of bushfires.

Cheers.

And yet another storm fizzles out to be a non-event.
Yesterday it rained less than 200 metres from here (only lasted 10min, but still...), all I got was a 3min sort of shower.

So far in Dec, we've had less than 20mm of rain (12mm of that in one fall). Average for the month is 251mm.

Mean temperatures are usually
25.3 min
32.7 max

and so far it's
26.5 min
35.6 max

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Grant
Darwin NT

We're up to 52 fires in this region now with 5 of them (3 just to the NE and 2 to the SE) within 10kms of the village and the easterly breeze is blowing the smoke this way, but they're in very rough terrain that's hard to access, though if they do move this way there is plenty of open clear land between them and us here to stop them. Tomorrow afternoon a westerly change is expected and that will blow those fires back into those areas further east that have already been burnt out or are still burning.

Our mains stems and hoses are still in place and the water bombing choppers plus their refuelling truck should be back on the oval here again today (in fact I can hear a heavy chopper now heading this way).

At least we're in for a cooler overcast with only 25C expected with a good chance of rain as well as thunderstorms later.

4 S.A. CFA fire trucks just went screaming through town heading south likely heading to the 2 fires to the SE of here.

Cheers.

36°c, 50% RH, and no cloud cover makes for very sucky days.
Even if it doesn't rain, it'd be nice to have some decent cloud cover- that Sun has some serious bite to it.

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Grant
Darwin NT

My heart goes out to the people, and all living things in Australia!
I pray that these deadly times will quickly pass.

My heart goes out to the people, and all living things in Australia!
I pray that these deadly times will quickly pass.

I wish that it'll pass quickly too as I've been breathing this smoke for 3 months now, but sadly it's not looking that way. :-(

Cheers.

Finally!
We got some rain. Only lasted for 25min or so but it was a good soaking fall, and it actually brought the temperature down (at least for a while) to 3°c less than our overnight minimum.

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Grant
Darwin NT