Tropical Canberra
Feb. 28th, 2007 11:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyringIt's been real tropic island weather here recently. Fine, hot days followed by an afternoon or evening storm. Nice to get the rain, of course, but I prefer my precipitation in a less concentrated form.
Last night before midnight, I heard rumbles of thunder, like a continuous growling. Got out on the balcony and it was a brilliant moonlit night on one side of the sky, and on the other was a huge mound of luminous white mashed potato, lit from inside by lightning. It was a glorious spectacle, but I was kind of hoping that it would stay on the other side of the Mawson-Dickson line. Fill the reservoirs, not the streets.
Alas, it pelted down about an hour later. Thunder, lightning, torrential rain, and then ever-increasing hail. Cabbies usually like hails, but not last night, not this little black duck!
I thought about doing something about the two cars we've got parked out in the weather (the new one, and my neice's, parked temporarily at our place while she's interstate), but figured that if the hail was severe enough to damage cars, it would likewise damage my tender pink skin. Besides, there was a creek running down the driveway, through the carport and past my office door, bearing leaves, branches and little icefloes of hail. I checked on the chooks, but they were safe in their pen, all huddled together in one of the nesting boxes, a solid little cube of brown feathers and drowsy eyes.
So I went back to bed, pulled the covers over my head and went to sleep. As best I could, anyway. I'm still nursing a cold and a blocked up ear, and sleep isn't as easy as it could be.
And in the morning's light, I find about a tonne of mud and gravel that needs shifting. No damage to the cars, thankfully, but it looks like half of Civic is shut down, some roads a metre deep in ice, roofs collapsed, flooding in shopping centres and schools, major traffic problems as the morning peak hits.
I'll probably take over the cab later today from a very haggard day driver with a swag of horror stories.
And then I'll likely have to battle another tropical storm myself...
Last night before midnight, I heard rumbles of thunder, like a continuous growling. Got out on the balcony and it was a brilliant moonlit night on one side of the sky, and on the other was a huge mound of luminous white mashed potato, lit from inside by lightning. It was a glorious spectacle, but I was kind of hoping that it would stay on the other side of the Mawson-Dickson line. Fill the reservoirs, not the streets.
Alas, it pelted down about an hour later. Thunder, lightning, torrential rain, and then ever-increasing hail. Cabbies usually like hails, but not last night, not this little black duck!
I thought about doing something about the two cars we've got parked out in the weather (the new one, and my neice's, parked temporarily at our place while she's interstate), but figured that if the hail was severe enough to damage cars, it would likewise damage my tender pink skin. Besides, there was a creek running down the driveway, through the carport and past my office door, bearing leaves, branches and little icefloes of hail. I checked on the chooks, but they were safe in their pen, all huddled together in one of the nesting boxes, a solid little cube of brown feathers and drowsy eyes.
So I went back to bed, pulled the covers over my head and went to sleep. As best I could, anyway. I'm still nursing a cold and a blocked up ear, and sleep isn't as easy as it could be.
And in the morning's light, I find about a tonne of mud and gravel that needs shifting. No damage to the cars, thankfully, but it looks like half of Civic is shut down, some roads a metre deep in ice, roofs collapsed, flooding in shopping centres and schools, major traffic problems as the morning peak hits.
I'll probably take over the cab later today from a very haggard day driver with a swag of horror stories.
And then I'll likely have to battle another tropical storm myself...
