February 5th, 2024Kyle’s Rant

What a rip-off this summer has been – and in the wake of the Bureau of Meteorology declaring an El Niño event underway on September 19 last year, which should have meant a hot dry summer.

Our weather bureau was a few months behind with their declaration from the other bureaus in the world, so a considered declaration I suppose. But none of it makes sense, with a lot of rain, jumpers and jeans on every other week and sometimes a “feels like” temperature of 12 degrees.

And who invented a “feels like” temperature anyway, it either is or it isn’t. I wish
I could say “Sorry Constable, it only felt like I was doing 60” when I was actually
doing 80 according to his speed camera.

Or follow a recipe that calls for a low cooking temp of 120 degrees and I burn the dish because the oven temperature “felt cold” but was 200.

But back to the weather. As I write this Cyclone Kirrily is getting set to flood the hell out of Far North Queensland and hopefully this time the mainstream media won’t make the same mistake as they did with Cyclone Jasper.

The problem with Jasper was that they got all the news presenters to wade out into the storm and report live on TV on, let’s face it, initially a bit of a fizzer of a cyclone.

The networks then flew them all back home and missed the big show, the terrible flooding. And by then the airport was washed out and roads closed, so it was local media only and the thousands of hours of amateur footage to go through from the flood victims was all they could go on.

By the time we go to press it will be interesting to see what happened in terms of reporting from Kirrily. There has already been a lot of speculation about whether it will form a cyclone or just be a bad weather system.

So, an interesting fact. A cyclone doesn’t just form, it becomes a low-pressure system which rotates clockwise and when it reaches the magic number of around 960 millibars it is then recategorised into a cyclone – thanks Wikipedia.

But I digress. Back to home. Those of us who have lived around the district before 2019 know the weather of the Central Highlands can deliver a beautiful, long summer worthy of having a pool installed, and used for at least a few months – unless you have something really heated or room for one inside. I do know of one house in Glenlyon with an indoor pool. Not sharing names though.

But since December 2019 the summers here have been diabolical with “bite through you” south-easterlies being a common thing where the southern side of the Ranges stop and give way to the historically dryer northern side, as in Lyonville to Glenlyon.

Traditionally the weather is like chalk and cheese, especially during south- easterlies even though as the crow flies it’s only around 10 kilometres, but these days we seem to get more water-laden winds from that direction. And, of course, there is no truth to climate change, said tongue firmly in cheek.

So, as we say hello to the last month of the summer I say what a bloody scam. I bought a few new pairs of shorts in readiness and some banger uber-cool shirts from the Mill Markets and have only had a couple of times to trot them out.

Cruel Summer rant over…