Well, it turns out that we actually DID get snow here! This morning my coworker pointed out that a small blizzard of dry snow was whipping up outside the office; now we're supposed to get 2-4 inches over the next day! The temperature dropped from 67 to 30 literally overnight!

Meanwhile, areas southwest of here picked up a quick 15.5 inches/395mm of snow the other day, and a little more is expected tonight with ground blizzard warnings up for the eastern Dakotas and western Minnesota.

One of our local TV meteorologists commented that 'Old Man Winter is upset with our recent above-average temps and is about to do something about it.'
That something includes lots of wind tomorrow bringing in temperatures well below 0F and wind chills that will definitely get our attention.

Yes, it can't be the end of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, yet, nor is it yet the end of summer down here. We've had exceptionally good rainfall since my January 17th birthday, so much so that the level 3 water restrictions have been called off. Nepean dam, admittedly one of the smaller dams, went up from about 30% full to 100% full, & the same is true of Tallowa dam.

I'd expect volatile spring weather up north, whether we get more hot weather or not. Lately the air temperatures have been much more bearable, however, I'd forgotten just how muggy & humid it can be in hot rainy weather.

Yes, it can't be the end of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, yet, nor is it yet the end of summer down here. We've had exceptionally good rainfall since my January 17th birthday, so much so that the level 3 water restrictions have been called off. Nepean dam, admittedly one of the smaller dams, went up from about 30% full to 100% full, & the same is true of Tallowa dam.

Oh, you said January 17th birthday... I missed a word as I was reading that quickly just now and thought for a moment you said you'd just had your 17th birthday. (Yeah, right... )

Seriously, though, I'm thrilled to hear there's been so much rainfall in Australia and all the bushfires are now contained or out entirely — and so good to hear about the dams, too. What a blessing. I'll be back in Victoria at the end of this week — our area (South Gippsland) wasn't near any of the fires, but it's so good to know there's been relief at last for those who were caught up in it. And the bush always grows back amazingly fast after a fire.

Meanwhile, here in the UK we've had two major storms two weekends running... fortunately, the current one was at its worst overnight (very loud gusty winds) and by now, at least here in the south, it's mostly subsided into heavy rain with no more wind. I have a long drive to and from my church on Sundays and some stretches of the motorway had huge amounts of water on the surface, but most people were driving safely and sensibly and it wasn't too scary, thank goodness. And even the rain is easing off by now.

Oh, you said January 17th birthday... I missed a word as I was reading that quickly just now and thought for a moment you said you'd just had your 17th birthday. (Yeah, right... )

I can only wish, though. My 71st birthday was a year ago, in 2019, & one cannot turn back time by reversing a date.

Seriously, though, I'm thrilled to hear there's been so much rainfall in Australia and all the bushfires are now contained or out entirely — and so good to hear about the dams, too. What a blessing. I'll be back in Victoria at the end of this week — our area (South Gippsland) wasn't near any of the fires, but it's so good to know there's been relief at last for those who were caught up in it. And the bush always grows back amazingly fast after a fire.

I can wish you all the best for a lovely welcome home to Oz. There were quite serious bushfires as far south as Mallacoota, on the Victorian border, where tourists were stranded between bushfires & high water. But that was on the coast, south of Eden, or what is left of it, so I'm not sure just how badly affected Victoria was. Kangaroo Island, off the coast of South Australia, was very badly affected, & I thought I heard about bushfires up Beechworth or Bairnsdale way, as well. So I'm not sure what you will find. Unfortunately, there will be the um Tash to pay over these bushfires to be sure. Heads will roll, people will cry foul, & head honchos right up to the top of the governmental management structure may care to pay a visit. But surely there is a silver lining somewhere, if not a silver chair.

The water restrictions in Sydney will be cut back to level one on March 1st, & though we were covered in a bushfire brown out for at least two months even before Christmas, Western Sydney, & the lower Blue Mountains were relatively unaffected by bushfires except around the edges at the back of Katoomba & Kurrajong, in Bilpin, the Capertee area, & up the Putty Road, towards Broke. If that sounds like a proverb, something like being up the proverbial creek without the proverbial paddle, Broke, believe it or not, is an actual place, & so is Putty.

I hope the spring weather doesn't heat up too quickly up North in Narnia. It would nice to have what is supposed to be normal weather for this time of year, wherever we are in the world.

Very happy to hear those fires are under control at last!

Last week we had the best snow I've seen her in a long, long time. It wasn't a lot... maybe 2-3" at most, but it was as Gazer calls it, heart-attack snow. So we went out and threw snowballs and made a couple snowmen, some snow angels.

Today it was just over 60F. We were outside playing for a while and I had the doors to the house open.

These weather swings are crazy, but it's fun to get a little bit of everything!

I can wish you all the best for a lovely welcome home to Oz.

Thank you!

There were quite serious bushfires as far south as Mallacoota, on the Victorian border, where tourists were stranded between bushfires & high water. But that was on the coast, south of Eden, or what is left of it, so I'm not sure just how badly affected Victoria was. Kangaroo Island, off the coast of South Australia, was very badly affected, & I thought I heard about bushfires up Beechworth or Bairnsdale way, as well. So I'm not sure what you will find.

Going by what I've seen in the news, it was mainly East Gippsland (which is a hot spot for bushfires, so to speak) and a few in central Victoria. There hasn't been a major fire anywhere near Inverloch, my home town, in recorded history as far as I know. (We're 150 km / 90 miles south-east of Melbourne, on the coast.)

If that sounds like a proverb, something like being up the proverbial creek without the proverbial paddle, Broke, believe it or not, is an actual place, & so is Putty.

Don't worry. Here in England there are some truly bonkers place names, including (just for a few favourite examples) Braintree, Warninglid, Potto and Nether Wallop.

3 USA firefighters were killed when the plane they were using to head off a fire, threatening a koala sanctuary, crashed in the Snowy Mountains. It was so tragic, & upsetting. Flags were flown at half-mast & prayers were said for them & their families at church. It was bad enough that they had given up their own Christmas Holidays to help us. The plane had been based at Richmond, quite near here.

Two weeks ago I had the honour of being on a plane with some family members of one of these men, who were being met by military, fire and police services, as their loved one, in a flag-draped coffin, was handed over to them with a quiet ceremony, straight off the plane (on the tarmac at Denver airport). The rest of us stayed quietly in our seats during this. At the start of the flight we were told these people were on the plane, and there was a round of applause as a mark of respect for the family and the lost men.

Thank you Coracle for letting me know.

I'd like to see some other mark of respect awarded to these three men as well as what is due to them for their families' sake by their own country. Surely our own country could also award them a medal apiece for their bravery & service in our country in the line of duty, as a mark of thanks, if nothing else, & I would be ashamed if they got no recognition this way here. Never mind the naysayers, saying that our medals are only for our own Australian citizens. That is a far too begrudging an attitude to take.

Don't worry. Here in England there are some truly bonkers place names, including (just for a few favourite examples) Braintree, Warninglid, Potto and Nether Wallop.

I know. . Some of ours, such as Come-by-Chance & Nevertire are just as bad. If I ever drove as far as Nevertire, not only would I be really, dangerously, tired out, but I'd hate to see the state of my car tyres. As a matter of interest, whenever my old grandmother used to say something was no good, she'd say "it was 'up to putty'. I could never understand whether she meant putty, the very soft & pliable substance, or Putty, the place. As for Broke, yes, thank God those bushfires are over, Fantasia. However, it is all too likely that the effects of them are going to have a severe impact on our economy, as well as much else, as we try to rebuild, & recover. I certainly hope the events of 2020, so far, don't send us all "Broke".

We've had some more rain though it has been easing off. I hope the extreme weather we have had was a reset of our climate & not a return to the drought conditions we have been enduring for the past three years.

I'm now back in Australia for just under two weeks (seeing my family) and am amazed at how cool it is for mid-February... well, I wasn't here during the fires, so I can't talk. My mum and my sister were telling me how awful it was even in Melbourne and South Gippsland, well away from the actual fires but with so much smoke in the air, even at this distance, that people were becoming ill with respiratory problems. So glad it's all settled down now. I quite agree with Waggawerewolf that those three American firefighters who lost their lives ought to be awarded medals or some similar kind of acknowledgment too.

Meanwhile, it's just after sunset in southern Victoria and I've just been hearing the wonderful familiar sound of kookaburras cackling out there!

Yes, it is rather pleasant weather at the moment, for February. No "February Dragon" this year, for once. Next Sunday it will be autumn officially, anyway. Enjoy your vacation, & I hope it is good weather on your return to UK.

Your horrible Black Saturday bushfires of February 8, 2009, when the maximum temperature, even here, climbed to something like 47 degrees, Celsius was bad enough. At that time, we still had a swimming pool in the back yard to cool off in, with Norfolk pines in the neighbour's backyard, perfuming the refreshing evening breezes then to ameliorate the discomfort . But now we've had enough searingly hot weather for another decade, I hope. But is it wet or cloudy down your way, in South Gippsland? Although regional New South Wales did get quite a bit of the rain, not everyone there, was so lucky, unfortunately. Victoria, which did get a little more rainfall last year, might have been luckier in that respect as well.

I'm not surprised at what your Mum & sister had to say about how it was in Melbourne. Even Coracle in Christchurch, in New Zealand, was getting weird skies there with a horrible red sun. There was talk about North Island being clouded over, either Christmas or in the New Year, but then there was that White Island volcanic eruption as well.

I did hear that a commemoration for all of the twenty five or so people who were killed in the bushfires is to be held in Sydney, & that people were already gathering for it. They did mention that the USA firefighters would be included in this commemoration. Yesterday there was a concert on TV with entertainers from both here & overseas to perform. Delta Goodrem was singing the Seekers' I am Australian song, but left out the middle verse, the one about the convicts' being "bound down by iron chains" & who eventually were freed. That omission annoyed me a little, since that, too, should have been acknowledged in our history.

Spring has unofficially arrived here in Kansas. Our last freeze date on the forecast was a week ago. We have a projected 30F late next week and that's it. I can pretty much start gardening anytime I think.

One of the firefighters who went to Australia was from this area, and on his return a local station interviewed him. He had a lot of positive things to say about how well-organized and hard-working the Australian firefighters were, not to mention the gratitude of the Australian civilians he encountered as well.

A warm weekend helped melt much of our snow, so we're mostly down to the piles and snowbanks only. The rest of the ground is that lovely brown color that will last until enough warmth and rain inspire everything to burst forth in the green of spring.

Still, we're reminded winter is far from over, as an Alberta Clipper dropped a quick coating of snow on some of the area.

Whilst I worked, until 2013, we used to donate to the NSW Rural Fire Service. But it has become much harder for us to do so, now that I'm retired, with growing health expenditure to cope with. Given that many, if not most, of those firefighters are volunteers, & not usually the regular, government-funded, district fire brigades, it is really good to hear of your compatriot's positive opinion of them. We have had plenty of experiences of horrific bushfire episodes, right across Australia, not only here on the eastern seaboard, deep into the Great Dividing Range, but also elsewhere, around Adelaide, & even in Tasmania & Perth.

But this particular episode was by far the most horrific I've known in my life time, even though at the beginning of 1994, bushfires ringed the Metropolitan area of Sydney, including suburbs like Jannali, in the south, Roseville in the north, or Springwood, relatively close where I live. Both then & later in October, 2013, they were visible from my front windows. It was due to the 1994 bushfires, & their outcome, that a film called The man who sued God was made, starring the Scottish comedian, Billy Connelly.

This summer, starting up across the Queensland Border, the bushfires spread the full length of New South Wales' coastline, especially around Myall Creek & Port Macquarie, right down past Mallacoota to Omeo, & then across to Kangaroo Island. A bit in area if you superimposed Brisbane on a map of North America to align with the St Lawrence River, down as far south as North Carolina or give or take, in a patchy sort of way. The bushfire smoke persisted for months, leaving Sydney's metropolitan area, though bypassed, itself, looking & smelling like a somewhat too realistic impersonation of Dante's Inferno, set to Vivaldi's accompanying music (Dance of the Furies?). A friend at church found airborne embers in her garden, whilst several times I found drops of pink-coloured fire retardant decorating our garbage lids, from returning helicopters & planes. Charn-ish is the nearest I could get to it without upsetting our moderators.

In this Black Summer, it was all hands to the deck, including the Governor-General, David Hurley, himself, & various ranks of politicians, both State & Federal, from both sides of Parliament. Star sports players, whatever their code of football, were out there, fighting the flames. Even the Australian Army was called in, in such an emergency, as was right & proper. No wonder civilians are so grateful for the help other nations, such as Japan & Singapore, not only USA, Canada, Papua Niugini & New Zealand, traditional allies, also sent to us.

We have had a bit of continuing rain, including overnight showers. At least some of the inland rivers are actually running free, thanks to runoff from the Queensland monsoons, though dams like Burrendong Dam, are still at pathetically low levels, like 6% full. It is good to see that all is well, weatherwise, in the north of USA. However, those Tennessee tornados seemed a most terrible catastrophe, especially as they happened in the middle of the night. Stargazer, is that normal for tornados? Generally they seem to happen in afternoons, rather than at night. Or do they? Meanwhile, I do love your avatar, Stargazer. If groundhogs aren't meteorologists then neither are the rather similar-looking possums or meerkats.

Wagga, I agree that tornadoes seem to happen often in the heat of the day, mid-to-late afternoon. However, I've read that a third or more of tornadoes occur at night, and they are the most dangerous, since people are usually asleep and more likely to be caught unprepared. It's also much harder for spotters to see the storms at night, and they are often a key component to confirming radar-indicated twisters, or spotting them in the first place.

It's not yet tornado weather here in the northern US (though some of our state's strongest ones have occurred in March), with highs in the mid-40s F (around 5C). Most of the snow is gone, but rain, possibly heavy, is expected in the next 36 hours and it may mix with some snow.