Are you coming to Australia for the weather?

One of the big attractions for us in moving to Australia was the weather. England, in case anybody doesn’t know, can be very “grey” and “drizzly”.

Don’t get me wrong, the UK does do the four seasons very well; maybe you might get a bit of snow in winter but you will also get those wonderful crisp sunny winter’s days that make you feel so fresh and alive.

Summers do often throw out at least a couple of fantastically hot weeks, sometimes more. On the rare occasions temperatures climb to the high 70s or to 80°F or more, that’s 25° C to 30° C, the tabloid newspapers usually start featuring pictures of people sweltering by the beach on their front pages.

People get that excited about it.

But what I have described here are good weather days in the UK, for the most part I’m afraid it really is grey, or drizzly, or both. Oh, and often cold. Here, for example, is a picture of a younger Bobinoz with a much smaller Elizabeth perched on shoulders; this photograph was taken on 31 August 2006 in Cornwall.

Bobinoz and Elizabeth

This, for us, was a perfectly pleasant summers day. Not only was it not raining, but there were hints of sunshine here and there. Note that I still needed to wear a jumper though.

Australia’s weather

Since living here in Australia I absolutely love the weather, especially here in Brisbane. I am ecstatic by the (something like) 250+ days a year of sunshine we get and the fact that winter hardly exists.

Its shorts and T-shirt for me pretty much all the time.

I would never complain about the weather in Australia and I would never want to go back to UK weather. I love the weather here in Australia. But it does have a dark side, and who better to bring out the dark side of anything than…

Today Tonight

I’ve mentioned the Today Tonight show once before here in an article about the changing face of Australia. If you have read that post, you’ll already know that the Today Tonight show likes to sensationalise the news wherever it can. I know we used to have programs like this on UK TV as well, I just can’t remember what any of them were called.

Anyone know?

Anyway, here’s Today Tonight sensationalising the weather; you will not hear anything I haven’t already told you about. Their video covers the following subjects and I would strongly recommend you click on each of these links (after finishing reading this whole article, of course) to find out more about each of these weather conditions…

But, I have to say, Today Tonight does it so much better, I mean, you’d be scared to wake up each morning not knowing exactly what “weather” you’d be facing that day. Unfortunately, they removed that sensationalist video from their YouTube channel, so I can’t scare you any more with that. So let’s search Google.

Wild weather in Australia

Yes, it is true, we do get some rather wild weather here, maybe it’s the price we pay for the mostly fantastic climate. As sensationalist as the Today Tonight video is, or should I say was, there is also an element of truth in what they are saying.

I just searched Google for “Australia’s wild weather” and the following headlines came up for just the last month alone…

  • Australia’s east hit by wild weather – Yahoo!7 – Sep 26, 2013 – Wind, high temperatures and storms have hit Australia’s eastern and central states, with firefighters on high alert and SES inundated with calls…
  • Wild windy weather predicted to return to NSW | Sunshine Coast Daily – Oct 2, 2013 – WILD weather which grounded planes, cut power and fanned bushfires across NSW on Wednesday was expected to return to some parts of the state on …
  • Wild weather leaves thousands without power in South Australia – ABC – Oct 1, 2013 – Thousands of properties across South Australia lost electricity supplies as high winds swept the state…
  • Weather News – Wild winds create havoc in Melbourne – Oct 1, 2013 – Melbourne saw one of its warmest Septembers end with a bang as violent winds gusting over 100km/h battered the district bringing down trees and power lines …
  • Wild weather lashes Perth – WA Today – Sep 22, 2013 – Emergency services were kept busy on Saturday night after storm whipped through the suburbs, all pictures courtesy of Perth Weather Live…
  • Wild weather blacks out 10,000 in Tas | Sky News Australia – Oct 2, 2013 – Wild weather in Tasmania’s north has left around 10,000 homes without power and prompted warnings from emergency services. ..
  • Canberra’s wild weather, September 26 – Canberra Times – Sep 26, 2013 – A car hit a tree that fell across Wentworth Avenue in Barton due to high winds…

As you can see, each and every one of these articles is less than three weeks old and we have wild weather in Australia’s eastern and central states, including Brisbane and Sydney. We have wild weather in Adelaide, South Australia, and in Melbourne, Victoria. We even have wild weather reports from Perth, Canberra and Tasmania’s north.

Seems we have wild weather just about everywhere except Darwin.

But I still wouldn’t swap Australia’s weather for that of the UK’s and where I am right now, today, I have beautiful clear skies and temperatures are hitting 34°C; it’s been like this for a month or two now.

Yes, it’s a tad hotter than I’d like, but I’m not complaining.

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{ 21 comments… add one }
  • Marie Buttinghaus October 6, 2014, 10:46 am |

    I hate the summer in Australia, and hate humidity anywhere most of all! Can think of nothing worse than searingly high temps with sweat pouring from you. I have no energy to do anything when it’s like that. Particularly hate the east coast of Australia weather 🙁

    • BobinOz October 6, 2014, 4:04 pm |

      Well, the heat isn’t for everyone, personally I love it though. Maybe you should try Canada? 🙂

  • djmcbell March 31, 2014, 5:48 pm |

    I would say BITS of the UK do the four seasons very well, depending. Here up north we don’t regularly get much sun each year, it’s mostly pretty grey. Or at least it feels that way. I think we did have some nice weather during the 2012 Olympics but that was about the extent of it, apart from the odd nice week here and there. So far this year we haven’t had much in the way of cold weather – our current weather is pretty warm (I think we got up to 15 or 16 degrees celsius yesterday, which is very good for this time of year) but the sky is still overcast.

    As for Melbourne vs Sydney, it really does seem like the two are worlds apart – at least from my very limited experience of Australia. I saw my parents in 2010 who live near Melbourne in November, and it was rainy from time to time with grey skies, though it did brighten up a lot of the time. We then went to Sydney for a few days which felt a lot brighter and hotter.

    • BobinOz April 1, 2014, 1:44 pm |

      Yes, that’s true, Melbourne and Sydney are very different when it comes to the weather, I think most people will agree that the weather isn’t Melbourne’s strongest point.

      You will get the four seasons there though, often in one day, sometimes in an hour! That said, you would take Melbourne’s weather over the UK’s any day.

  • Pam in Melbourne October 28, 2013, 10:51 am |

    I moved to Australia in 1969 with my parents, lived in Sydney until 1997, then moved to Canberra for work. Canberra is a fantastic, safe place to bring up a family and my son tells me he’ll probably move back when he settles down, however it is quite expensive as ther average salaruies are higher than the rest of the country and it despite all that you may read it is NOT all politicians, p[ersonally I think it is one of the country’s best kept secrets with great facilities and the lowest unemployment in the country. The only thing wrong with Canberra is it has really cold winters, it can get down to minus 7 and it even snows in the suburbs, It gets very hot days in Summer up to 40 degrees but little humidity and you can always sleep at night, and I loved it. We moved to Melbourne just over two years ago again for work, it is a great city, much much better than Sydney more for young people to do than Canberra, but be prepared for cool gloomy grey winter days, actually in the past 5 months we haven’t had that many totally sunny days and today is another classic. Whilst it’s been cool and gloomy here, over the past two weeks they’ve been sweltering and had bushfires in Sydney. If you don’t like the humidity stay away from Queensland. Personally Canberra is my favourite but my husband hates the cold, so what can you do.

    • BobinOz October 28, 2013, 7:17 pm |

      Great roundup of the weather around Australia Pam, thanks.

      It does always seem a little strange to me that Sydney and Melbourne whilst not that far apart can have such different weather. I have heard from a couple of other sources that it has been really cold in Melbourne over the last week, yet it has been oh so different in Sydney, as we know.

      As for the humidity in Brisbane, funny as it sounds it doesn’t bother me at all. I love the climate here and for the relatively few weeks it can get quite sticky in the summer, I think it’s worth putting up with for what we get the rest of the year.

      Sounds like Canberra gets a big thumbs up from you though, thanks for letting us know.

      Cheers, Bob

  • Paul October 17, 2013, 12:44 pm |

    Hello bob your photo in Cornwall some of my family live there and it seems to rain 9 months a year from what they tell me, here in Essex it’s a lot more dryer and warmer in summer, my best city in oz Sydney I liked it there when I was over in 2008 Perth is too hot for me in summer I have a very fair complextion and cannot stand up to Perths heat, best wishes to you all in Australia.

    • BobinOz October 17, 2013, 2:31 pm |

      Hi Paul, yes, it does rain quite a bit in Cornwall and as for Essex, that’s where I lived for almost 50 years. It is drier, but not dry enough 🙂

      Now, Australia, that’s drier!

  • Rafal October 16, 2013, 4:43 pm |

    Hi Bob,

    When I wake up here in Poland at 6:30 it’s dark here and it’s 4 C, then when I sit in the office it’s dark outside and at noon there is 9 C cold… When I finish at 4pm and go to pick my kid from kindergarten it’s about 5pm so I can “enjoy” the sunset…
    It’s getting dark when I reach my home at 5:30pm…
    After a month of such weather I’m in a mood to sleep entire winter and not not get up from the bed at all… but what about life?
    I would swap Poland for Australia just because of the weather as it’s influencing a lot on my daily life here in a negative way…

    Thanks for posting a lot of interesting facts from Australia’s daily life:)

    Greetings,
    Rafal

    • BobinOz October 16, 2013, 11:52 pm |

      Hi Rafal

      Thank you for reminding me what English winters are like as well, because they are pretty much the same. No wonder I love ‘winters’ here so much 🙂

      I hope that one day you do get to swap Poland for Australia if only for the weather, because it is worth it just for that. It’s hard to be miserable when the sun is shining every day.

      Cheers my friend, Bob

  • warwick October 16, 2013, 8:34 am |

    Mehdi, are you be prepared to adopt the Australian way of life?
    In Australia, young men and women who excel at sports are highly regarded.
    If you had a daughter with a natural aptitude and a keen desire for competitive swimming, would you prevent her from realizing her potential?
    Would you forbid her to swim in public without a veil or scarf around her head and baggy clothing around her body?

    If you had a daughter who studied the philosophy of science would you forbid her to express the opinion that the evidence supports Darwin’s view that humankind evolved from lower life forms? That the religious story of humankind being created in it’s present form, and placed in a garden in the Middle East, is at best myth and at worst hogwash?

    • BobinOz October 16, 2013, 4:04 pm |

      Hi Warwick

      I am fully aware of your opinions and views from the many comments you’ve made around my website, none more so than on the post Is Australia Racist? I respect your knowledge on a wide variety of subjects and in particular on worldwide religions. I always appreciate your input.

      I operate a free and open forum with a very relaxed comment policy, but I do not want to extend that to questioning how someone would behave on arrival in Australia based on their country of origin.

      Mehdi wants to know how to get a job as a civil engineer, you haven’t helped him. The post is about the weather, you haven’t talked about that. Your comment is therefore “off topic” which breaks one of a very small handful of rules I do try to stick by.

      Crikey, you’ve even imagined Mehdi has a daughter who is good at swimming! 🙂

      Let’s leave it at that and I don’t think Mehdi needs to answer your questions unless, of course, he chooses to do so.

      Mehdi, I think (I hope) that what Warwick is trying to say is to get the very best out of Australia it’s a good idea to embrace Australia and all of its ways, lifestyles and the people. You are, of course, free to worship your God of choice.

      Cheers, Bob

  • Mehdi October 16, 2013, 3:20 am |

    Hi bob
    This is mehdi from Iran.I have received your mails and visit your site more than 2 years and it is fabulous.
    I am a civil engineer and want to find a job in Australia.
    I have recently booked an IELTS exam and ready to overcome it; And I am legible to sponsorship conditions.
    Please help me if you can
    Best regards
    Mehdi

    • BobinOz October 16, 2013, 4:01 pm |

      Hi Mehdi

      Good to hear from you, it’s great that you have been enjoying my website for so long.

      I can’t help you personally in your search for a civil engineering position, but I can point you to a page that might help, it’s called Getting a Job or a Sponsorship and also a guide that I have for sale here, that’s called How to Find a Sponsored Job in Australia.

      I can even help you with your IELTS exam if you think you might need it, see How to Pass IELTS.

      Good luck, I hope it all goes well for you. Bob

  • Lorraine October 14, 2013, 1:48 am |

    Oh I cannot wait. It’s just started to get cold In the uk. I’ve got the fire on today and I’m already counting down the days to my final oz fact finding holiday before the big move! Whilst the uk has beautiful seasons and there’s nothing like a crisp icy morning to wake you up or the flowers all blooming tin the same week to signal spring I still want more sunshine!

    • BobinOz October 15, 2013, 12:53 am |

      Then you are coming to the right place Lorraine, you’ll definitely get more sunshine here 🙂 cheers, Bob

  • warwick October 12, 2013, 5:32 pm |

    Bob, it is a great photograph of you and your little daughter.
    And look at the rolling hills.
    That land has been tended and loved by wise and caring people for centuries.

    You were in paradise.

    • BobinOz October 12, 2013, 6:12 pm |

      Hi Warwick

      Cornwall is one of the UK’s most beautiful counties, and yes, in its way it is a bit of a paradise. If, for whatever reason, I had not been able to move to Australia and had to stay in the UK I’m pretty sure I would have moved to Cornwall.

      Luckily I did make it to Australia, and I really do regard this place as a paradise.

      • BobinOz October 12, 2013, 6:15 pm |

        PS. The land: It’s probably not so much the care of “wise and caring people” but more likely the result of plenty of rain 🙂

  • Benji October 12, 2013, 4:30 am |

    Bob,

    Where I live in the United States the summer average is 40 C and can achieve 50…. the winters are PERFECT. But no extreme weather like what you describe in this post. No wind, tornados, or big fires that we lose power over. Are the big cities like Melbourne and Sydney affected like other places?

    • BobinOz October 12, 2013, 6:09 pm |

      Sounds like you may live in Arizona Benji, I think I remember reading somewhere that that state is one of the safest places in the whole world when it comes to avoiding natural disasters.

      Yes, most big cities including Melbourne and Sydney can be affected by these extreme weather conditions.

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