What is winter like in Fremantle Western Australia? To be a typical winter here, it should be cool and wet and it has been up until this past week. In fact it has been as wet as it was back in 1991 with a little above average in rainfall. When you are this dry a little above normal is great. The reservoirs are still only 35-40% full so they need more but it is still better than it has been. If I were looking at 35-40% full, I would be looking at the clouds for more. Australia in general is the driest continent in the world except for Antarctica but we will give it some special exceptions status. Australia has for many thousands of years had long severe droughts and ones that can be unpredictably as to when they will arrive and how long they will last. So the one they have been in for nearly ten years or so is not completely typical so it is still long even for here. When we were here in 2004, they were in it so it is nice to see that it seems to be breaking a little. Temperatures have ranged from the middle to upper 60's and lows in the 40's to middle 30's. There ares some below freezing temperatures in the interior of WA but they are only 2-4 degrees below freezing. The first few weeks we had a lot of clouds and showers would come zipping by with some drops some rain and move on. It made things very changeable. The Friday before the students arrived, there a very deep low that moved through that blew down trees, damaged roofs and did other damage but most are not that strong. Most are not nearly the strength of good old Midwestern storms.
Now in a country that is so dry would you expect to find a white water race down a river? Well they did and it was on the Avon River, which is a tributary of the Swan River that flows out through Fremantle. They held it again this past weekend and the water levels were so high that they had to close two segments because it was too dangerous. One because of the clearance under a bridge and another simply because the section was just too treacherous. Even with the two diversions, they were setting record times getting down the course. I was fascinated because they did the run in single kayaks, doubles and in flat bottomed power boats with a maximum of 10 horses outboards for power. The kayaks are not the whitewater style we see in the US but long narrow ones that I think of as racing kayaks for flat water. There were kayakers who did not make it through the rapids without getting upset. One picture in the paper showed a fella in the middle of a rapids standing on a rock and diving to his right. The caption said that it was his kayak that he was trying to catch but it was not visible in the picture. Another kayaker, a South African, stopped and helped another kayaker who tipped over in one area and when on his way to win the event anyway. I would have like to have watched it but I do not have a car so it was not possible at this time.
Winter stays on through August and starts to moderating in September. What am I saying! We are already moderate at least by Minnesota standards for the only snow is in the Sterling Ranges south of us. Now the southeastern part of Australia has some higher mountains and they area little further south so there is snow there in the high country. They are having a great ski season in the mountains there this winter. But again that is not here.
Here is a link to the Australian weather bureau so you can see what is happening here weatherwise. I used Google map street function and gave our address here and found myself looking at our gate. Hmmmm very interesting. Much discussion about privacy.
As always more to come!
B.
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