fantasia_kitty wrote:I'm wondering if we're looking at a summer like yours wagga. I sure hope not but it wouldn't surprise me one bit. Our next week has high temps in the mid to upper 60Fs. A good 20F higher than our average temps this time of year.
And to top it all off, our weekend currently has a 50% chance for thunderstorms. Thunderstorms!!! In February!! We don't usually see those until April, though they're not uncommon in March.
You might well have a hot summer, but temperatures higher than 35C may only be for a day or two for the whole summer. At least I certainly hope it isn't any worse than that for you, and a whole lot nicer. The main problem is to conserve one's electricity supply for the air conditioners if you have them, by topping up battery - run items as soon as weather that hot is predicted, planning on minimum cooking, plus planning how to reduce temperatures at home by using shades, shutters and curtains to keep the heat out.
Some years are worse than others, though we've had consistently higher summer temperatures this decade, especially in the last 12 months. Apparently, since Sydney was first settled in 1788, we have had temperatures as high as 53C, during what was in other parts of the world a continuation of the Little Ice Age, up to 1870. My grandmother talked of asphalt melting on the roads, and used to say that temperatures were so hot they could fry an egg on the pavement. Unfortunately for her and others at the time, women's clothes were "proper", conservative and generally unsuited to hot weather. No wonder our Aboriginal first peoples must have thought settlers were a bit daft.
Funny you should mention thunderstorms. Back in the 1990's we could almost expect a daily thunderstorm about 3.pm or later, but this year, those welcome summer thunderstorms and Southerly busters, blowing away the heat, seem to have gone missing in action this year. We haven't had much rain at all. It is cooler now, but we are expecting a return to hot temperatures on Friday and Saturday, fortunately not exceeding 40C.