Friday 30 December 2011

The Missing Monsoon

We sort of lucked out, with Cyclone Grant passing by Darwin for Christmas 2011. Or is that got lucky?

Not so lucky, definitely, were people south of Darwin, around 250kms or so, a little north of Katherine, who copped a massive flash flood caused by monsoonal rain – some [almost] 400mm of overnight rain. This caused monumental road and rail line damage, including a major derailment and probably some environmental issues due to copper concentrate going in the river from the derailment and severely damaged several bridges, effectively cutting Darwin off from the rest of the country.



The rail line might be out for months is my guess, but the road [Stuart Highway] is now reopened, albeit on reduced service levels [ speed and some other restrictions] initially, with work to fix it probably also likely to take months and several millions of dollars [ remember – still 3-4 months of wet season to come yet].

A major disaster event.

Plenty of photos on the internet.

Since Boxing Day though, rain has stopped in Darwin. The weather is back to 35C days, clear skies and ultra high humidity, along with hot nights [29C at night].

This afternoon, and not before time, we have had around 15mm in a storm, but we are missing some monsoonal weather. Cloudy skies, occasional rain showers, and cooler [say tolerable 30 -31C days, 24-25C nights] conditions. While extended monsoonal weather makes for very poor clothes drying and does get you down a bit after several weeks, it does allow tempers to ease due to cooler conditions, and there is a reasonably steady north west monsoonal breeze, also aiding one feeling a bit cooler . A week of monsoonal weather with 10 - 20mm of rain daily would cool things down.

The monsoon has gone away, maybe sucked into Queensland as part of the tail end of ex Tropical Cyclone Grant.

Can we please have a slightly cooler few days, with some cloud cover?????

[photo taken NT Department of C and I, 2011]

Wednesday 21 December 2011

Fragrant Orchids

It never ceases to amaze me that these orchids always seem to flower together.

There are now about six plants scattered around the yard and they almost always flower on the same day, every time, which is quite a few times across the year!

Unfortunately, the flowers only last one or at most two days, but they are an absolute outstanding mass of showy, small, fragrant white flowers when they blossom.

Today is the day..........a beautiful sweet perfume is all around the yard, and into the house, especially notable when I walked into the living room this morning.

A bit of a distraction from the cyclone that is brewing up offshore......another Christmas present for Darwin??






Enjoy the view.............

Thursday 8 December 2011

Mythbuster's Catastrophe

Mythbuster's TV show can be amusing, often quite funny.

But things sometimes go wrong........and this did, big time!

Worth watching the video!

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57338281-71/mythbusters-cannonball-busts-through-house/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&tag=nl.e703