Stormy Day

We don't get much severe weather here (nothing to compare to Texas), but today would rank amongst the most horrid.

When deep depressions pass south of Tasmania in the summer they generate savage winds as the cold front approaches, and those winds come from the north or north west, so they bring hot air from the mainland. That was the case today, and by late morning wind gusts of up to 200 kph had been recorded!

Stormy Derwent River, from our window.

Probably not quite up to that here, but enough to snap off our poor old nectarine tree. I was working at the window just above, but never heard it go, because the windows were rattling so much. The tree has produced huge crops of fruit for about 30 years, but that looks like the end of it, and the fruit was a month away from being ripe.

Death of a nectarine!

There wasn't much holding it up.

No other serious damage here, though my runner beans have taken a bashing, but we shall wait to hear the story from elsewhere in the state. Certainly there was a horrible cloud of dust blowing out of the drought-ridden pastures in the southern inland.

Dust clouds over the Derwent.
Better than smoke, I suppose.

As I write (2.30 pm) the pre-frontal trough has passed and the winds have eased. I happened to leave the car in the road because Jean was out when I got home, Just as well, since a branch came off the neighbour's tree where the car usually sits!

And I spoke too soon! A wander round the garden revealed several branches off trees and a section of fence more or less laid flat.

Debris from various trees

Later..... we heard on the news tonight that there had been quite a lot of structural damage in our area, including a tree through the roof of Illawarra Primary School, a couple of kilometres away in Blackmans Bay. And the Midlands Highway was cut by a bushfire at Epping Forest.

So we do get some weather.