@stargazer: Thanks for your advice regarding dark sky observing, @courtenay. Winter would definitely be my season of choice, both for the cooler weather and the longer nights to enjoy the sky. The Outback would be ideal for dark conditions but getting there would probably be impractical. (Random note: I read Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice when I was young and it was one of my earliest introductions to Australia).

As a matter of interest, the Alice Springs Public Library is also called the Neville Shute Memorial Library, and that town is a railway stop on the weekly Ghan Railway from Adelaide to Darwin.  The famous landmark, in Central Australia, where there is also accommodation, is called Uluru, & is about 335 km from Alice Springs Yes, you are right about choosing winter, as summer daytime temperatures there have gone as high as 47°C, at the centre of the Australian continent. 

However, in Parkes in NSW, on the 8th January, each year, they have a festival for Elvis Presley, as well as proximity to the Parkes Observatory, which is an important Southern Hemisphere relay for NASA. On the road from Parkes into Dubbo, the Taronga Western Plains Wildlife Zoo has its home, as another great local tourist attraction for that area. There are other observatories around NSW, not only in Sydney, such as Tidbinbilla, near Canberra, our national capital in ACT, or Siding Springs, near Coonabarabran & the Warrumbungles. 

Meanwhile, the monsoon has finally arrived in Oz, and temperatures are a bit lower as a result, though Northern Queensland has already had some bad floods. 

Good to hear you are receiving a lovely snowfall, stargazer! I assume this storm is the same that made its way eastwards to us overnight last night, with 8-10" of fluffy, soft white stuff. So beautiful! We spent an hour shoveling our fairly lengthy driveway this morning, which was such fun. (This was not 'heart-attack snow'.) Comfortably cold temperatures continue throughout this week (a few degrees below freezing by day and -10 or 11 at night (14 or 12F) , with flurries most days, and more snow forecast for this Wednesday and Saturday.  

This past week we were up in ski country, which has received mounds of snow the past month+. Every day we were there it snowed, with some snowfalls lasting hours. We played outside in the powdery snow a few hours every day, so wonderful—snow-shoeing, building long tunnels, etc. A fantastic week together with our family in the pristine white outdoors (we did sleep inside, haha)!

Loving this bountiful snowy winter weather!

Our soon-to-be daughter-in-law is right now flying up to Iqaluit (Nunavut) on Baffin Island to do a medical locum for two weeks. She has been there before, and is eager to visit and work there again with its frigid temperatures and loads of snow! ('Though she prefers the snow to the the icy temps. )

Enjoy your snow, @jo! We ended up receiving about 5 inches/125mm of new powder snow, making the world fresh and white again, and not being so difficult to shovel.

Cold is up next for the upcoming week, with highs struggling to reach 0F/-17C and nighttime lows around -15F/-26C. And that's here in the city, including the urban heat island effect. It's going to be colder in rural areas.

Fun note: the other day, right before the snow hit, a long line of 14 wild turkeys walked up the street like they owned the place, causing a little traffic jam as cars stopped to let them pass. It's hard to believe that they were relatively rare a while back, and it was exciting to see them on my camping trips some decades ago.

wagga, I'd like to visit some of those Aussie observatories given a chance (the names were familiar to me from the astronomical literature).

What fun about the turkeys, stargazer!  

We have a major system moving in tomorrow afternoon, bringing with it yet more snow falling through Wednesday night and into Thursday. There is a chance, when the temperature rises to near the freezing mark overnight, that freezing rain will be a small part of the equation, but not for long, as the temperatures plunge again with snow. Our snow is going nowhere soon!  

Saturday brings another snow system, and next week there could be more. I know I have said this before, but this is winter as it should be here in Ontario. A snowy, cold season that makes one feel alive with it crisp freshness, plus many more opportunities to stargaze, given clear skies, with the short days.  

I woke up feeling really cold this morning. What sort of weather is this for Summer?
But it was about 10 degrees at 8.30, so a cold start to a sunny day!

@coracle You could always come back to England for a while. Mum told me this morning that she'd heard they're having "freezing weather" over there (I'm still in Oz at the moment), so I looked up the weather forecast for my home town in Cheshire and showed it to her. Starting from Tuesday (as it still was there at the time), the respective max/min temps for the coming week are 5º/3º, 6º/0º, 4º/0º, 4º/1º, 5º/2º, 5/2º, 6º4º (all temperatures in Celsius). I assured her this is cold but quite normal for February, but Mum was horrified at the thought of a maximum temp of "only" 5 degrees or less, so there you are. (Meanwhile where I am in southern Victoria, we're headed for a top of 29.)

Last Monday, I thought it was, we watched on You Tube about Japan's weather, lately. They seem to have so much snow in Hokkaido and on its West coast, that they almost seem to be experiencing a mini-Ice-Age. Our heat is rather muggy, currently 27 degrees Celsius. The monsoon definitely arrived before Australia Day, the latest it has ever taken, in 1973, assisting with a thunderstorm, with thunderclaps so loud that it rattled the house. 

@courtenay brrr! Six weeks in northeast Yorkshire was enough!

@coracle Did you see all the snow and ice we had in the second week of January??  

@courtenay well, I struggled across the country on 5 January. Several days of ice, snow dregs, and slush followed. 

Did we have yet another wonderful winter snowstorm overnight, as forecast, wow! It began mid-afternoon yesterday, ending up this morning with another 9-10" of that beautiful white blanket. Neighbours were out this morning, helping each other shovel the driveway mounds and clearing out pathways to front doors, etc. Such fun, with a great community feel! And there was not a hint of freezing rain involved, so everything that fell was snow. Some farmers were even going around the village with their tractors, helping to clear.

The radar was to look at during the storm. Blue upon blue upon blue.  

Apparently another large system is descending upon our area on Saturday over Sunday, so ... here we go again! While this week is comfortably cold, next week becomes a fair bit colder, which means that the snow is staying put for quite a while yet. This has been an A-1 winter for January and February!

@jo Oh, I would love your A-1 winter with all the snow (so long as the roads are salted and cleared, as they conspicuously weren't when we had snow in Cheshire last month ). I'm in Australia at the moment and we just had another couple of really hot days, with the weather only breaking last night with a relatively short but welcome downpour. Now it's down to about 20 C again, thank goodness. I never liked the summer heat even when I was growing up with it, and I like it even less now that I'm not used to it!  

Posted by: @courtenay

I never liked the summer heat even when I was growing up with it, and I like it even less now that I'm not used to it!

I can well imagine! I did not grow up with excessive heat and humidity, but this past decade has sure ramped up both in the deep summer (mainly July for us), it seems. Which is one of the reasons why Autumn and Winter are my favourite seasons. Spring is okay, but knowing that Summer is next in line puts a damper on it.  

Our snowstorm has hit with a vengeance. Yesterday we received another half foot or so of snow; today's accumulation is forecast to be more. In our area, 20-30 cms (8-12 inches). In eastern Ontario, 12-20 inches. The winds are picking up too, and will become gusty today, especially over tonight.

Here is our radar from a few minutes ago. Look at all that glorious blue! See the city London? Our rural area is at the top of the first 'N'. The poor folk south of us, though, with all that freezing rain.  

And here is the forecast from last evening through tomorrow morning.

The temperature plummets tonight, with a very cold week ahead, flurries most days, with a few peeks of wintry sun possible. 

EDIT: This morning worship services are cancelled all over the area, not surprisingly, including ours at Indwell.

I have now been home for a month in the southern hemisphere.  Our summer has been poor, rather cool and rather windy. My resolve to go walking is often lost when I look at the wildly blowing trees and bushes.  A cool start to the day (even when the thermometer indicates warm) leaves my hands very cold, and this is no good for any gardening or housework.

Posted by: @jo

Our snowstorm has hit with a vengeance. Yesterday we received another half foot or so of snow; today's accumulation is forecast to be more. In our area, 20-30 cms (8-12 inches). In eastern Ontario, 12-20 inches. The winds are picking up too, and will become gusty today, especially over tonight.

It just keeps coming! We are finally getting a decent snowfall, though not at all like what you're getting, Jo. While not quite such a snow-lover as you are, I like it well enough, and this is the most we've had all season.  About 4 inches (not at all like what you're getting!) but it's been falling for more than 24 hours.  And I don't have to go anywhere, hurray!