With some people, a break just cannot be caught! Parts of Victoria were on fire and now other parts are threatened by torrential rain and flooding. Same in New South Wales as storm fronts sweep in from the Pacific and the Coral Sea, dumping massive amounts of rain. Sometimes it’s an advantage to live in the most boring state in the commonwealth. And in between all that comes the news that a young volunteer fire fighter has been killed. He was cleaning up after a fire when a tree branch fell on him.
Now we have major flooding in large areas of Queensland / New South Wales and reports of three dead including a 17 y.o.boy who was swept into a flooded drain. He and his mate were wading through the water at the Golf Club looking for golf balls when they were swept away. His friend survived. Thousands have been evacuated and there are flood warnings out on over 15 river systems across two states. Sometimes we get a bit of localised flooding in Adelaide, but never to the same extent because we just don’t have the river systems. On top of all this comes the news that Western Australia is bracing for another tropical cyclone.
The last few days we have had high temperatures and yesterday at 43.5 was the high of three days of mid 40s. Today it’s supposed to be back down again – think in the high 20s – just another day when you go to bed hot and bothered and wake up in the wee small hours looking for a blanket as you shut off the overhead fan. Added to this is the fact that it’s raining and things change very quickly Apart from not doing flooding we don’t do snow here either. Although, having said that we do have the occasional hail storm that temporarily covers the ground and looks like snow – for all of half an hour.
I am confined to the house and sheds and garage for most of the day. My car is away for repairs. Nothing too serious – the fuel gauge is not working and I need that to be working when I drive to Adelaide. It tells me the distance to empty so I can plan the fuel stops – although the truth is I really don’t need it because it’s a set route from here to Adelaide – unless I want to deviate by several hundred miles and arrive from a different direction. But the reason I use the distance to empty function is that if I want to get home for something, knowing where the petrol (gas) stations are, I know how far I can go without having to stop for fuel.
A “Red Alert” has been issued for people in parts of the coastal areas of Western Australia as Cyclone Rusty approaches. Rusty is a category 4 cyclone , punching winds of up to 250kph and although it’s a thousand miles away from us, we will expect to get some residual rain, not enough to cause any problems, but some. It is expected to hit land this afternoon sometimes – if it keeps its current speed.
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