As I mentioned in my recent post, February in South East Queensland is hot... Damn hot! Now that's fine we have 11 months to prepare for it, we know it's coming, it's not like we are surprised, in fact there are some things we wait all year to do during the heat of February. Like go hiking in the Glasshouse Mountains, getting heatstroke and requiring a rescue. Actually that's usually tourists... Good on em' for havin' a go though!
And of course it doesn't just happen overnight, we work up to it gradually... From as early as September the mercury starts to rise and by November things are really starting to heat up. By December, it's officially quite hot. So by the time we get through December and January you're fairly well acclimatised to the hot weather, it's been around for almost 5 months. In fact the pineapple farmers have been known to put sunscreen on their pineapples to protect them from the scorching heat in South East Queensland...
So when you are accustomed to temperatures in the high 30s every day, and humidity around 98%, sure it can be sweltering, clammy even at tad exhausting. But that's the weather we love here in Queensland! And if it all gets too much you can always wonder down to any beach along our hundreds and hundreds of kilometres of pristine coastline where sand meets surf and enjoy those beautiful cool ocean breezes, or take the plunge and cool off.
But in the last 24 hours something very disturbing has happened here in Queensland... It got cold!!! Well very cold for February in Queensland!!! The lowest temperatures ever recordered for Febuary were recorded in parts of Queensland and those temperatures dropped in some cases below the average, by as much as 14 degrees celcius! Holy crap that's cold!!!
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One day it was normal very hot, sweltering February Queensland weather, the next we are looking around for our tracky dacks and a hoody. Last night apart from turning off the enormous great fan I usually run all night to keep cool, I had to close the windows, get under the doona and resorted to bedsocks and a seater over my summer PJs! OMG what is the world coming to...
Fortunately I had nowhere to be this morning, so I slept in (goodness knows it was too cold to get up), until rang from Tokyo. I ventured just 1 hand out from under the doona to take the call. He was amongst other things calling to let me know it was snowing and it was only 1 degree celcius.
Normally he would have had my complete sympathy, especially when he mentioned that the maximum in Tokyo was going to be 4 degrees celcius, but not today. Today my response was, "I don't think it's much better here in South East Queensland mate!"
While that wasn't quite accurate and I may have been exaggerating just a tad, it was still incredibly cold for us poor Queenslanders accumstomed to the heat. Now at least the humidity did the decent thing and stayed at 95% lest we all collapse in a heap from the shock of it all.
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So while we all sit in front of the TV with a blanket over our knees while the cold front bringing the chilly weather, clouds and rain to depart, we will all wait patiently until we can all start complaining about the heat again, like it should be...
But for now I'm crawling back under the doona!
Thanks for reading...