Antarctic Vortex

We are in the grip of some cold nasty weather with storms, which has come up the east coast, direct from the Antarctic, second one in a week. Usually our weather flows west to east, so after Matt has enjoyed it in Perth we get it. Snow down to 600 metres, sleet reported at Freshwater Beach this morning by an intrepid ocean swimmer. Seriously cold in Sydney, and extending up to Queensland, with snow on the Great Dividing Range, being a spine of hills about 80km inland running north/south, dividing the coastal region from the more inland regions. Some strong coastal winds, up to 90kmh, forecast with it. Brr, I already lit the fire at 8am.

Is Al Gore there? He always attracts that kind of weather to his "Global Warming" get togethers.

Ted

Like it Ted. Al Gore has visited, but not recently. The "warmists" who predicted our dams would be dry forever(currently 98% and 92% full in Qld and NSW respectively) are very quiet. It`s lousy boating weather. Our Spring is 6 weeks away, but so is your Fall.

Bruce- I could look this up, but easier to ask you: What S. latitude are you? I'm at 34N and can get some ice and snow in our winter..

Ski in NC said:

Bruce- I could look this up, but easier to ask you: What S. latitude are you? I'm at 34N and can get some ice and snow in our winter..

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Interesting, we are 34S. We are having as cold a winter as I recall. We don`t get snow/ice in Sydney, sleet at sea level was a surprise, I have seen it, or snow, at level 57 of a building i once worked in. I thought you would be too warm for snow/ice. I`ve been to New Orleans.

In North Carolina, we in the winter get our weather from the N and W, so arctic blasts come down and hit us without any moderation from the sea. Not uncommon to get a few nights -10C and a few inches of snow a few times each season. My salt water boat basis gets ice sometimes. And we are close to same N. latitude as Los Angeles, Gibraltar and Isreal. Not much ice nor snow in those places.

Bruce,
I can vouch for the cold up here in Brisbane at the moment - so cold the bananas are going straight!!!

Brisyboy said:

Bruce,
I can vouch for the cold up here in Brisbane at the moment - so cold the bananas are going straight!!!

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I just saw a brass monkey looking for a welder(ok, should be a brazer).
Lots of snow in the Blue Mountains and west of there. We may be past the worst in Sydney, it`s about 12C now.

That's cold? It was about 13C this morning at my marina and this is our summer. the high was about 25C.

Hi Bruce and all.

It is that damn Global Warming stuff we were warned about. Bruce is right it is Very unusual for it to snow in Queensland, the last time any notable snow fell in my home state was 5 th July 1984 and that was a reasonable amout which fell in Stanthorpe which is not far from the New South Wales border.

It has been very close to 0 degrees in the early morning [ 5 am ] when I have been heading off to work all this week.
This latest [ today ] event has dropped a blanket of 8 cm on Stanthorpe and surrounds, quite a turn out for the locals and a lot from all over south east Qld who have flooded down there to experience this once in 30 yr event.

All over Aust. our boating is never to any large degree effected by extreme weather. We do not winterize.

Bruce you can keep the rest of the snowy weather down there thanks.

Regards.

David.

Hard to wrap our heads around the fact that--while it may be frigid in some local areas--2014 is the hottest year on average globally since human record-keeping began. Weather = local. Climate = global.

Brisbane in latitude 28º 27' S, and yes, inland at what they call the granite belt they had 8" of snow there today. Virtually unheard of. Normally they might get a bit of sleet once a year, and that's it. It is 9ºC outside as I sit here now at 1010pm our time in the evening, and predicted to get down to 2-4ºC over night, with max of 16º in the day tomorrow but wind chill taking 10º off that. This is unusual all right. However, global warming produces wider swings in temp, rather than just warmer all over, so best called climate change, which is what most call it now. Natural or not, it can be nasty, and when you thing about the increase in extreme weather events all round the world, it is a bit of a worry. Irrespective of what happens in the middle east, I think mankind could be in for a rough ride in the longer term.

angus99 said:

2014 is the hottest year on average globally since human record-keeping began.

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And 2015 looks to be even hotter. June:

There has been snow here in places it hasn`t been for 30 years. Is that is significant in general "warming", perhaps not. It`s nothing like people experience regularly elsewhere, but to us it is unusually cold. I`m hearing the system is moving towards New Zealand. Big southerly swell on our east coast.

Those Antarctic lows tend to come to us via NZ don't they Bruce? They are taking a worse belting than us. They have had snow in places that virtually never get it, and very strong winds.

Nearly 2000 still without power following Saturday's weatherbomb | Stuff.co.nz

Peter B said:

Those Antarctic lows tend to come to us via NZ don't they Bruce? They are taking a worse belting than us.

Nearly 2000 still without power following Saturday's weatherbomb | Stuff.co.nz

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Could be Peter, and it looks tough for NZ. I thought this time it came up from Antarctica, first affecting eastern Aus, then moved east towards NZ. Either way,same result, both places, cold.

I'd love to be back in Adelaide, with a nice cool southwesterly blowing away.

Here's this weeks local forecast of max/min temps here at work. It was about 10 deg F hotter last week.
It would be more bearable if their was beer.


Kifri, Iraq
Sunny
Precipitation 0% · Wind 3 MPH
Sun 19 114° 94°
Mon 20 114° 93°
Tue 21 114° 89°
Wed 22 116° 89°
Thu 23 116° 93°
Fri 24 116° 95°
Sat 25 118° 95°

Ah blissfull days of summer. No wind or clouds great fly fishing weather.
I hope you are near the water.

To bloody cold here in Melbourne, zero here this morning, the dog didn't quite understand the icy grass. Can't wait to get back to the boat and head north!

Ski in NC said:

In North Carolina, we in the winter get our weather from the N and W, so arctic blasts come down and hit us without any moderation from the sea. Not uncommon to get a few nights -10C and a few inches of snow a few times each season. My salt water boat basis gets ice sometimes. And we are close to same N. latitude as Los Angeles, Gibraltar and Isreal. Not much ice nor snow in those places.

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This year and last were the coldest temperatures I have seen in NC. It is very unusual for us to get below 20F but this year we were down to 6F once or twice and 9F a few times. Last year was about the same but I think we only hit 6F once. Once is too much.

The last two years were bad with quite a bit of snow and ice. Thankfully, not enough to cause us power outages but enough to keep the kids out of school so that they had to go later in the year and on some Saturdays to make up for snow days.

Course, I can remember in the mid 70s when the Ohio River froze over a couple of times and we were being told it is time for the next ice age. Spent a lot of time out of school due to snow storms. We would run around in the woods and creeks having snow ball fights and sledding. Was not fun falling through the ice and getting wet though. Thankfully, the creek was shallow so you just got wet but by the time we would get home our jeans would be frozen. Crazy kids we were.

Heat has not been bad at all this year and we had a cool start to the summer.

We live in the country and I work in the city. In the city, I will constantly see 5-10F higher temperatures year round due to the heat island affect. So much cooler in the county.

Later,
Dan

dannc said:

This year and last were the coldest temperatures I have seen in NC. It is very unusual for us to get below 20F but this year we were down to 6F once or twice and 9F a few times. Last year was about the same but I think we only hit 6F once. Once is too much.

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Yup...I was nervous as a cat this past winter with my (new to me) boat, Though our delivery trip at the end of Nov. was 60 degrees. I think I'll pull it this year for a few months and piece of mind..

Wow, send some of that up here.. It's hot, 101 on the truck temp gauge today riding back from New Orleans.

Heron said:

Yup...I was nervous as a cat this past winter with my (new to me) boat, Though our delivery trip at the end of Nov. was 60 degrees. I think I'll pull it this year for a few months and piece of mind..

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At 6F our water supply line, which is 2 feet underground and runs into the house from INSIDE the foundation, can freeze a bit, even though the line is about 12 inches inside the exterior walls of the house. We found this out the first 6 degree night we had. Thankfully, there was no damage due to the pipe being plastic and then PEX as well as the water did not freeze solid. <Whew>

I think the reason why the line can freeze is that there is a "freeze less" exterior faucet which can actually freeze. That "freeze less" faucet froze our first winter in the house. It sill is not fixed since we will have to cut drywall to fix the $%^&*(O)$%^&*( thing. Anywho, that long "freeze less" faucet allow cold air to penetrate the wall and causes the supply line to freeze or at least that is my best guess.

Now we run a little space heater that blows on the wall when the temp is going to single digits. You would think we live up Nawth and not in the South..... :lol::lol::lol:

Later,
Dan

Hi dannc.

I have seen Pex used on This Old House and not sure if it is available Down Under. It looks like the ideal product to use on boats because of its`simplicity. It looks so easy to to use once you have the tools needed.

Regards.

David.