How long does each states summers last in Oz?

[Guest hill billy]

Nowhere near as hot in Melbourne as places at similar latitude and elevation in Europe. Eg. check out the summer maximums and averages for places like Seville, Athens, Cyprus and Sicilly and then look at Melbourne's averages. The places on the Med are heaps hotter.

 

There is a widely used climate classification system called the Koppen climate classification that puts Melbourne in the same category as London.

 

Victoria may have higher extremes than the UK (in terms of heat) but overall the climate is remarkably similar, especially when you get up into the hills.

Not where i live in the hills.

[Guest The Pom Queen]

These figures are crazy, don't you get fed up with it being so warm for so long, I know I would...............n't, lol

To be honest yes and no. At the end of dry we are definitely ready for the wet at the minute we have bushfires around our house and we are in a rainforest.

In Melbourne I was there for Black Saturday, many of the members were and we will all tell you that when it gets so hot and dry it is very scary. Over 2000 homes destroyed, many people burnt alive :no: http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2009/11/the-australian-“black-saturday”-bushfires-of-2009/

 

So no Jim the heat isn't always a good thing. Talk to the cattle stations in the outback, they have been in a drought for a number of years lost hundreds of cattle.

 

Just on our recent trip with BobJ we saw how the wildlife was desperate for any drop of water they could find.

 

You also need to remember that the sun is really intense here. For example in Cairns we can't sit out longer than 10 minutes (yes 10 minutes) without turning bright red and being burnt to a crisp. So we probably spend more time indoors than we would if we were in the UK.

[Bobj]

To be honest yes and no. At the end of dry we are definitely ready for the wet at the minute we have bushfires around our house and we are in a rainforest.

In Melbourne I was there for Black Saturday, many of the members were and we will all tell you that when it gets so hot and dry it is very scary. Over 2000 homes destroyed, many people burnt alive :no: http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2009/11/the-australian-“black-saturday”-bushfires-of-2009/

 

So no Jim the heat isn't always a good thing. Talk to the cattle stations in the outback, they have been in a drought for a number of years lost hundreds of cattle.

Just on our recent trip with BobJ we saw how the wildlife was desperate for any drop of water they could find.

 

You also need to remember that the sun is really intense here. For example in Cairns we can't sit out longer than 10 minutes (yes 10 minutes) without turning bright red and being burnt to a crisp. So we probably spend more time indoors than we would if we were in the UK.

 

As PQ alluded to the cattle stations, I'll expand on that; the trip from Cloncurry, east to the east side of Hughenden, a distance of some 450 km, every grazing paddock was eaten out, that is like from London to Newcastle. Most of those paddocks are about 500 acres in area. Couple that with 40 plus temperatures and you have a crisis on your hands.

 

Cheers, Bobj.

[flag of convenience]

These figures are crazy, don't you get fed up with it being so warm for so long, I know I would...............n't, lol

 

Actually yes a lot of us do. The predictable unremitting heat is not something welcomed by many. I love a pleasant sunny day by the sea as do many people but it becomes uncomfortable, if not a little dangerous on very hot days.

 

I have lived in the cold, dank and miserable weather in a number of countries and do knows what it is to have an over imaginative mind with regards to the sun. Facts as usual don't quite match reality. The UK in many parts has a generally rather mild weather. Three months a year not so desirable perhaps, just as could be said about Australia.

[Melb3000]

Melbourne does not have 6 months of temperatures with 4 or more days a week of 25C though. Whoever said that was just being flippant.

 

At most it is four months, i.e from December to March. In many years about half of March and half of December don't meet the criteria either.

 

As for the responses claiming that southern and mountain areas of Victoria have climates nothing like southern UK eg. London, look up the official statistics for these places. The average temps by month and the rainfall amount and distributions are very similar, especially in places on the central ranges and elevated southern areas. Admittedly, places at lower elevations and also in the north of the state are significantly warmer each month, the distribution of max temps over the course of the year follows a similar pattern however.

 

Also look up the Koppen climate classification which is one of the most widely used and accepted climate classifications.

Melbourne and a large part of south eastern Australia is classified Cfb- Oceanic, the same as pretty much all of the UK.

 

The only major difference is that southern Victoria sees higher temps on average as a result of a much lower latitude and more continental influence, especially in summer. Probably more extremes in terms of heavy rainfall intensities and severe thunderstorms when they occur and greater changes in temp over short periods of time in spring and summer.

 

Also the BBC article claiming the UK is the only place in the world with highly changeable weather over the course of a day and longer periods and with conflicting air masses from different directions is just a little too naive for my liking, almost to the point of being absurd actually.

 

They could have rewritten most of that article to describe Melbourne and Victoria's weather. Victoria is notorious for erratic weather patterns and shifts of weather over short periods of time, as well as sudden shifts of wind direction bringing rapid weather changes.

 

Victorians are constantly getting caught out by weather changes, eg. It's beautiful sunny and warm at 12pm and by 12:20 there are squalls and hail and the temp has dropped 5C, then this cycle repeats about 5 times for the rest of the day.

[Guest The Pom Queen]

As PQ alluded to the cattle stations, I'll expand on that; the trip from Cloncurry, east to the east side of Hughenden, a distance of some 450 km, every grazing paddock was eaten out, that is like from London to Newcastle. Most of those paddocks are about 500 acres in area. Couple that with 40 plus temperatures and you have a crisis on your hands.

 

Cheers, Bobj.

 

There is an article in the news today:

 

More than 60 per cent of Queensland is drought declared and rain could still be months away.

In some parts of the state, graziers have already been forced to shoot starving cattle.

With their hopes pinned on the coming wet season, three Queensland graziers describe life in the big dry:

[h=2]Russell Lethbridge[/h][h=3]Werrington Station, Queensland's central north[/h]Russell Lethbridge says drought life is a roundabout.

"It's not easy. We're a growing business. You're on the roundabout and you can't get off at this point," he said.

 

 

 

 

That roundabout is something many Queensland graziers have found themselves on.

Most will tell you that the Labor government's snap ban on live exports in 2011 left a huge glut that the local market has not been able to absorb.

Now with the drought set in, many graziers have struggled to offload their herd and so are committed to buying supplementary feeds to keep their cattle alive until the rain arrives.

When the drought started, the Lethbridges had 10,000 head of cattle at three locations across Queensland, so their roundabout has been long and costly.

Mr Lethbridge thinks he will have to wait until next year for drought-breaking rain.

"The predictions are not going to be for an early wet - looks like we've got to see new year," he said.

"The big issue with years like this is not so much the year in, but there's a massive loss of production in the following years.

"Calving can go from a weening rate which we have of 75 to 80 per cent to 30 per cent in the years following."

He says times are tough but it is nothing they have not been through before.

"We've been on Werrington for five generations. There's been a lot of years come and go and a lot of markets come and go," he said.

"We're all in this for the long term."

[h=2]Rosie Bryant[/h][h=3]Albury, Queensland's southern inland[/h]

Photo: Rosie Bryant ready to start work. (Supplied)

 

 

 

 

 

On drought-declared Albury, Rosie and Peter Bryant and their eldest son Lachie are trying to keep feed and water up to 1,400 head of cattle.

Most days, all three of them are out driving bulldozers linked with heavy chain to push over mulga scrub for the cattle to eat.

With temperatures now getting into the high 30s, they start early and try and stay off the machines during the hottest part of the day.

There are also dozer breakdowns, lick runs and dry dams to contend with.

Rosie Bryant says it is a constant juggling act.

 

 

 

Photo: Machine breakdowns are most unwanted during drought due to the urgency of getting down scrub and the expense. (Supplied)

 

 

 

"It's sort of a staggered thing. One dam will go dry so then you've got to work around that," she said.

"It's different for every paddock. Every day you're nutting out a new direction."

Mrs Bryant says the biggest worry is how long it might be until the first storm comes.

"It's just day by day," she said.

"You go to bed at night and you think, well we've got this day out of the way, we've successfully fed all these cattle. Now we'll worry about tomorrow."

Mrs Bryant says mentally they are all holding up, the cattle are strong - and that they are grateful for.

[h=2]Don Noon[/h][h=3]Cedarvale, Queensland's southern inland[/h]Don Noon sums it up when he describes it as a "waiting game with a lot of pressure".

His Cedarvale property, not far from Albury, has been drought declared since May.

In April this year, Mr Noon was forced to take the drastic step of taking 700 head of cattle on the road and going droving for greener pastures.

 

 

 

"When we were on the road you probably do from daylight, and you're with the cattle all day, so you easily do 12 hours, seven days a week," he said.

Back on the almost de-stocked property, Don's wife Kim was busy trying to keep supplementary feed like lick and cotton seed up to the remaining herd.

After about four months, when the cattle started calving, it became too hard to keep droving them so the Noons managed to find some agistment land - a rare thing when 60 per cent of the state is drought declared.

With the agistment paddocks some 450 kilometres from home, the Noons are still spending a lot of time on the road.

"Under different circumstances we would have sold the cattle but because of [the previous] government's interference with stopping the live export our normal markets were under serious pressure from those northern Australian cattle having to come this way," Mr Noon said.

"There were just too many cattle in the system. We chose not to sell to try and maintain our breeding herd."

On top of that he says kangaroos in plague proportions are exacerbating the already tough drought conditions.

"It's a major environmental problem. They're really destroying country," he said.

"Normally if you were running sheep on this country you'd be running three acres to a sheep, now we're running a couple of roos per acre.

"Those numbers are just decimating."

Mr Noon says there is not a big enough market for kangaroo products for the current harvests to be effective and more needs to be done to ease the pressure on the land.

He says for now his biggest challenge is maintaining a cash flow until the drought breaks.

"It's just a maintenance routine, you're just trying to keep [the cattle] alive until the rain comes," he said.

[Flathead]

It certainly is a harsh environment at times.

[Jurls]

How many hot months does Canberra have? Cheers

 

 

Mmmm, what is the definition of hot? I was back in the UK last July and found the temperatures there to be pretty unbearable, it was also much more humid than Canberra. 28 degrees in Essex felt more like 33 degrees in Canberra to me.

 

December, January and February tend to be pretty consistently over 30 degrees. There is usually a really hot week or two around the end of Jan, beginning of Feb where the temp jumps up to the high 30s, early 40s.

 

Having said that, I think the weather patterns are changing a bit and it seems unseasonally warmer quite early this year. We've had a few days with the temps up to late 20s already. We're all in for a long hot summer which personally I'm not looking forward to as I am not a fan of 30 degrees plus really. :biggrin:

[Paul1Perth]

Second winter in Perth and we've just invested in new insulation and reverse cycle ducted air con. Only used it to heat so far and I have to say it is amazing! No idea why more people don't have it, as its still used for a good 4 months of the year (for heating).

 

I should get more insulation Nic. We only had our reverse cycle on heat about a dozen times tops the whole winter. Has to be really cold before the house is cold enough to switch it on. Not used in now for a month or so. Next time it will be used for cooling I'm sure. Same thing though, mostly has to be really hot and still outside for the house to get hot enough to use the aircon. We didn't have it till about 5 years ago and just put up with the heat. For the winter we had a fan forced gas heater which did the job.

 

The reverse cycle is good though.

 

This Winter has felt like one of the longest since we've lived here. I saw another post in this thread that said it's been bucketing down for 3 months. I don't think it's been anywhere near that bad and can't remember a weekend where we've not been able to get down the beach on one of the days.

 

Anyway summer is coming soon and it's warming up already. Can't wait, love summer, light morning early, ski paddle or swim before work, time to go again after work, love it.

[Paul1Perth]

Wheres this then? And what's the weather like there? Cheers.

 

I was in Townsville last week Hoff. Been there loads of times on work trips. It was over 20 every day for sure. Monday was lovely, about 28 and sunny, Tuesday and Wednesday had some heavy rain, still warm enough to go for a swim in the outdoor pool on the strand though. Thursday, Friday nice again.

 

I think you would like it up there mate. Magnetic Island just off the Coast and the Great Barrier Reef not too far away.

 

Not as nice as Perth but nice.:cool:

[Paul1Perth]

Oh, I dunno, Baz...The Darwin had 18 C one day last year.

 

Cheers, Bobj.

 

I was in Darwin that week and the Northern Territory News had a picture of a guy in a full wetsuit with hood and snorkel who said he had to wear it to use his pool.:laugh:

 

It was the coldest they'd had it for years and the locals were walking around with ugg boots, jeans and sweaters on. I was in shorts and a T shirt.

 

I left Townsville early one morning last year too and it would have been about 18 degrees. Jumped in the taxi with shorts on and the taxi driver lady had a thick coat and the heating on full blast. Thought I was going to roast. All she did was complain about how cold it was first thing.:laugh:

[Guest]

Perth seems to be 6 months winter 6 months summer (20's weather) however its too hot in Jan/Feb

[Paul1Perth]

There would have been plenty of days over 20 degrees this winter in Perth dusty. We also have a spring and autumn when it's lovely too. Our garden has looked really good this winter. Lawns been green, loads of flowers out and I hate gardening so it's not due to my care. I think the 6 month winter you mention is about as good as an English summer.

[Guest Guest 47403]

Perth seems to be 6 months winter 6 months summer (20's weather) however its too hot in Jan/Feb

 

I guess you must have acclimatised most say more like 9 months hot/warm 3 months winter although you can't really call it winter if you have days that hit 20!

[Guest Ptp113]

Mmmm, what is the definition of hot? I was back in the UK last July and found the temperatures there to be pretty unbearable, it was also much more humid than Canberra. 28 degrees in Essex felt more like 33 degrees in Canberra to me.

 

December, January and February tend to be pretty consistently over 30 degrees. There is usually a really hot week or two around the end of Jan, beginning of Feb where the temp jumps up to the high 30s, early 40s.

 

Having said that, I think the weather patterns are changing a bit and it seems unseasonally warmer quite early this year. We've had a few days with the temps up to late 20s already. We're all in for a long hot summer which personally I'm not looking forward to as I am not a fan of 30 degrees plus really. :biggrin:

 

Low humidity so not so bad imho

[dmjg]

This year Melbourne may well have less than 6 months over 20.

 

It was lovely on the weekend. Bloody cold today. It only got up to 18 or so.