It is heading for 47*C!!!!!

[leelastarsky]

That's over 116* F!

This is INSANE.  I have never felt that sort of heat in my life!  (Yes, I know that's the sort of temp - and hotter - that they get in Central Australia and the Middle East, but this is MELBOURNE!)

Girlfriend, Carmel called in for a visit (we ate our Optifast bars together ;~P) and we noticed the bushfire brown sky just before she left.  Then we stepped outside and saw THIS -



That's not a cloud behind that blanket of brown, it's smoke.  Rolling and roiling as we watched, looking frighteningly like a bloody nuke! From a bushfire maybe 20km away.  *flails*  The wind is HORRIBLE.  :~C  The heat is unbelievable...

Carmel has had to take a different (and longer) route home because of the fire danger between her house and ours.  *flails*

Comments

[rdprice29.livejournal.com]

That is unbelievably scary! I hope you're ok and that the heat goes down quite a bit.

*HUGE SQUISHY HUGS*

[leelastarsky.livejournal.com]

Thanks! The temp has dropped, thank goodness!

[freckles42.livejournal.com]

Do you remember the summer of '96-'97? That was miserably hot, too, and iirc it was (at that point) the hottest summer on record in Australia. Looks like you're going to beat it handily.

I was camping with the Guides about 20 km outside of Adelaide, in the bush - for THREE WEEKS. It was WRETCHED MISERABLE. We'd get sunburned in half an hour (wtb ozone layer), even with SPF 55 on. I remember making polka dots with our barrier cream and then peeling our skin off two days later and having HOLE PATTERNS in it. We had one small swimming pool and had to take 15 minute shifts in it, 30 girls at a time, once every three days - why? Because there were 1200 girls at the game, plus 150 staff, and we all had to have an equal shot at it. Such misery. We managed to stay cool somehow (I remember there was a mudpit and we caked ourselves in mud like elephants, then sat under massive tents, praying for sundown).

You have my utmost sympathies. I remember that summer all too well, and no one believes me when I say it broke 45. Try to stay cool!

[leelastarsky.livejournal.com]

Holycrap! That sounds like the camping trip from Hell, literally. :~( I would have hated every minute of it!

[sue-parsons.livejournal.com]

Been there. Escaped horrific heat/smog/fires in Southern California. Now I am in a place where all of those things are terribly unlikely.

I know your pain. Hug your aircon and ice your birdies. And dream of cooler climes.

[leelastarsky.livejournal.com]

I'm aware you have a lot of eucalypts in Southern CA... I can't help feeling they're the cause of the terrible bushfires you seem to get there every year now.

I feel incredibly lucky to have seen out today in air-conditioned comfort!

[sue-parsons.livejournal.com]

I was able to move up to Northwest Washington state a few years ago, so I've escaped the annual conflagration. The eucalyptus are only a small part of the problem. Long periods of drought each year keep the plants scrubby, small and dry. Since they are close to the ground and tinder-dry, it takes only a spark from a campfire or lightning strike to set up a blaze. THEN add to that the seasonal Santa Ana winds, with gusts past sixty miles per hour, and you have the perfect storm.

Where I lived, in Chino, it was a large, long bowl-shaped valley surrounded my mountains on the north and east and tall hills to the west and south. Often we would be able to see the flames on the mountains or hills, and the smoke would get so bad my students would not be allowed to have recess outside and would have to pull up their shirts just to go down the outside hallways to get to the bathrooms. Ashfall would cover the cars and sidewalks, cloaking the landscape in gray. When the rain would finally come, residents would have to worry that the hillsides would come slithering down into their houses in the form of mud.

I don't miss a bit of it. Up here is gorgeous, and far too wet most of the time to cause concern about forest fires. The air and water are pure and clean. And people truly care about keeping it all that way.

[cunningplan.livejournal.com]

oh my goodness, how scary! stay safe!

[leelastarsky.livejournal.com]

So far, so good! :~) And a little cooler! I just hope this is the last of the big heat this summer.

[margaret67.livejournal.com]

wasn't the weather today crazy.

Where I live we could see the haze from the fires - I couldn't believe how hot it was

[leelastarsky.livejournal.com]

It was quite frightening. :~( I remember Ash Wednesday in '83 vividly. I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to sit it out in air-conditioned comfort.

Hope you were able to keep cool!

[suehypno.livejournal.com]

Holy crap. Now I'm very worried for you. That sort of heat totally frightens me (I'm a northern Great Lakes kind of girl) normally, but the fires on top of it? I was just reading some news this morning about what's going on. Do you have any sort of plan if things get worse?

Just keep thinking cool thoughts. I'm sending you a rainy day.

[magicofisis.livejournal.com]

That sounds both miserable and scary. I hope you're not too close to the path of those fires if it's still windy.

I lived in San Diego for about 8 years and can remember a few times when it got almost that hot. We lived in a house with no air conditioning, so we'd go to our friend's place that had a pool and just stand in the water for hours. One time we came home to see the the decorative taper candles we had on our fireplace mantle had all flopped over because the wax had gotten so hot.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that those fires don't come anywhere near you. Constant vigilence!

[bekkio.livejournal.com]

Oh no! Stay safe.