And Now for the Weather

I've been rather remiss since our holiday to Queensland to post very much on my little blog, so there is quite a bit of catching up to do.

I think the weather is rather topical, following the weekend we just had........

So, let's start at the beginning.......

While we were enjoying the warmth of Queensland in May, Bathurst received some snow.  We don't get snow in town very often, so that was quite novel, and early for the season.  There was snow on the surrounding hills again in June.

Other than that, it has been a very dry and warm winter.

When I was a kid, we used to go and stay at Grandma's (about an hour's drive away) during the spring holidays, which back then were the last week of August and the first week of September.  If we were lucky, during the second week, after lunch, we may be able to sit in the sun on the north facing verandah and take our jumper off and soak up the sun in a tee shirt.............This year I did that in our back yard in July!!!!!  We've had several days reaching 17 and 18 degrees C.  That is unheard of during July.

July was one of our warmest on record, with temperatures regularly 3 or 4 degrees above average.

Now to the other extreme......

We haven't had too many severe frosts, but our back yard seems to pool the cold air near our thermometer.

This was the most extreme we experienced - -10 degrees C!  But it didn't look all that frosty outside, because it is so dry.

We had a lovely "red in the morning" sunrise one day, but no rain eventuated.

We have had bits and pieces of rain, but nothing substantial and the level of Ben Chifley Dam, our local water supply, continues to drop.  We will commence serious water restrictions in the middle of October unless we get some major rainfall....but nothing like that is forecast.  At least our town isn't having to truck in water, unlike quite a few are now doing, with more getting very close to needing that.

As a consequence of it being so dry, we haven't had many of our well known fogs.  However, one Saturday we had a doozy.

Mick and I headed out at about 9.30am and this is what greeted us just down the road.

Now that is quite some frost.

So pretty.

I took this photo of our dripping tap at about 10.30am on the same morning.  It was a bit fresh that day.

Generally, we had been lulled into complacency that the worst of winter was over.......but we should never forget where we live, and that it can snow well into October and Mick remembers, when he  was a kid and lived in the surrounding high country, having a white Christmas!

All last week they were forecasting an "Arctic Blast" and "Polar Conditions" for the coming weekend, but locals were just saying they were exaggerating and we always get a "cold snap".  Well, we certainly did get a cold snap....quite an extreme one......

It started on Thursday night and Friday was freezing.  Snow started to fall then on the hills.  

On Saturday, as Mick was heading off to work (fortunately he was working inside), we notice that Mount Panorama had a white dusting.

After a while I had a look outside and was surprised to see it snowing here too. They were big flakes, although they don't show up well in the photo.  Sadly, nothing settled here in town.

Mount Panorama is supposed to be in the background of this photo.

The surrounding towns of Oberon, Orange and Blayney, as well as the Blue Mountains, received good falls all through Saturday and into Sunday as well.  The Oberon area was reported as receiving up to 40cm of snow!

We only reached 2.7 degrees C on Saturday and Orange only reached 2.1 degrees C.  Their coldest maximum temperature on record!

Two of my work colleagues were unable to get to work today and I expect one of them will not be able to get in tomorrow either.

So, after all that excitement, today was a beautiful day, reaching 13 degrees C.  We are supposed to get some serious frosts this week, but with lovely days.  By the weekend we are expected to reach 17 degrees again.

The weather is definitely crazy.