Winter in the UK and Summer in Australia Compared

Winter in the UK

I’ve never done this before, compare an Aussie summer with an English winter, but the events of the weekend over in the UK have been quite shocking. Well, I thought it was just the weekend, but it seems the UK’s wild storms have been bashing the country since the end of October last year.

I don’t usually do this either, show a YouTube video on the Monday, but this was what was going on in the usually quiet fishing port at Newlyn in Cornwall just three days ago…

That’s only scratching the tip of the very wet surface, here’s a comprehensive pictorial roundup of what’s been going on in the UK over the last few months, courtesy of the BBC…

I’ve always been very quick to write about the extreme weather conditions we have here in Australia, but life threatening weather isn’t restricted to this country and what is happening in the UK at the moment has quite rightly been described as a “tragedy” by the current UK Prime Minister.

Lives (3 so far I think) have been lost, but going forward I hope everyone in the UK manages to stay safe.

Summer in Australia

The contrast couldn’t be more stark.

This weekend was another hot one, so we took off to a coastal location ourselves, looking for a little bit of seabreeze.

We went to Woody Point, which is just the other side of the Houghton Highway going towards Redcliffe. So about 30 minutes drive north east of Brisbane city centre.

Even though the temperature gauge in my car was telling me it was 35°C, the breeze at Woody Point was so efficient it had cooled people down enough for them to carry on with their usual fitness regime.

We had cyclists…

cyclistsAnother cyclist, a skateboarder and three joggers…

Another cyclist a skateboarders and three joggersA few dog walkers, here’s one…

dog walkerAnd a park that didn’t have things for kids to play on, but benches for people to work out on. And instructions on how to keep fit…

think fitIf you didn’t fancy any of that, you could always just go to the pub…

PubOf course, Woody Point must have a point, and I imagine this is it…

Woody PointI hope blue skies and a bit of sunshine bless the shores of the UK sometime soon.

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{ 14 comments… add one }
  • news@ken September 11, 2023, 11:53 pm |

    Hiyadoin Bob in OZ,

    Aye, certain extremes is to be enjoyed, but please do acclimatise to them as I know a family that travel over every Dec for Christmas & tell me when the sun goes down, get the cardies out, if yer not useta it! ❄
    I mean where else do l ya hesr “put another shrimp on the barbie” 😂

    Although the recent WWC23 showed that with all the tourists over for the football ⚽ it certainly looked great weather 🏝
    But the BBC hosts were triple wrapped up high up in outside studio, except for the ones from Nth of England in home shirts commentating!
    Hardy bunch those!!

    Yes ya mentioned Melbourne where Neighbours is filmed, as i heard someone on radio visit the set & they were surprised at the weather, as they left a rain sodden Ireland 🇮🇪 & shocked to see the same conditions that he found hard to take in,
    I believe he now watches Home & Away, although time of writing Neighbours is back, but he’s maintaining the sunny disposition he gets from Summer Bay ☀ 😂

    It’s mad that ch5 UK was funding it
    & did anyone watch it still in OZ?

    As RTE show both here back2back daily!

    Anyway thanks for listening 👂
    Now I’m away to catch a few waves on the surfboard in Sligo 🏄

    • BobinOz September 13, 2023, 3:25 pm |

      Good to hear from you news@, I’m doing good, hope you are too. And yes, I’m certainly acclimatised to the weather here now, I have been here 16 years now.

      It’s funny though, before moving here I just assumed Australia was hot everywhere, wall-to-wall sunshine and blistering heat, but it isn’t. Melbourne is a good case in point, I’ve seen people wearing puffer jackets in the middle of summer and they say Melbourne can often have four seasons in one day.

      Different here in Brisbane though, it really is wall-to-wall sunshine, and winter hardly exists. Queensland is not called the Sunshine State for no reason.

      Ha ha, I watched the very last episode of Neighbours (realised I’m glad I didn’t see all the others) and also a documentary about it. Yes, it was Channel 5 in the UK who kept them going towards the end. Crazy!

      Surfing in Sligo? That I’d like to see…

  • Louisa Klimentos August 3, 2023, 10:28 pm |

    Why would you wear a coat in Australia when it is 20 degrees Celsius? I am from Sydney and you only need a light cardigan . Why do the British want to compare all the time . How much you feel the heat in your body , how many crowds of people , how many buildings there are , how much air conditioning there is and how open the area is . It also depends how climatised you are . It all depends how your body reacts to the weather . We are not a threat to the UK . So stop feeling threatened .

    • BobinOz August 10, 2023, 9:44 pm |

      Who’s wearing a coat? Who are you talking to? Who’s feeling threatened? What colour cardigan? I’m confused Louisa.

  • lalliankhum May 9, 2014, 7:19 am |

    hello…how are you.

  • kaylee February 20, 2014, 4:58 am |

    wish I was in Australia mate

    • BobinOz February 20, 2014, 10:06 pm |

      I wish you were too 🙂

  • Anne February 19, 2014, 2:54 am |

    I think it is simply that it goes the other way in Oz. The more extreme weather is in the summer in most paces. I think the worst thing about Austrtalian winters is that no-one seems very well equipped for the cold. The houses aren’t built for it, and people don’t routinely have very warm clothes either!
    We were in Perth for the last week of our Australia holiday, and it was a bit of a shock to drop 35 degrees on our return. However, the thing that made us laugh was a daft little something that showed us that in terms of ‘at it’s worst’ Australia’s summer can be like our winter……
    In Perth we struggled with the 40 degree heat, it was exhausting and a little bit scary. We were constantly worrying that we were burning, or that we might just fold from heat exhaustion. How did we deal with this when we were out and about? By wandering randomly into shops to get cool – to avail ourselves of their air conditioning & have a little break from the heat.
    A week later we were in Birmingham, getting some photos of our holidays printed in snappy snaps. As soon as we walked in we said ‘oh – isn’t it lovely and warm in here?’ – so at the same time of year, doing the same thing for the opposite reason – we’re around town nipping into shops to get warm!

    • BobinOz February 19, 2014, 5:32 pm |

      Ha ha, yes, good observations Anne, I think each of our countries have weather extremes that are complete opposites, but for some people are equally difficult to cope with. That said, some people love the heat, I’m one of those, and some people love it when it’s cold, I don’t.

      So for some people coping with the cold is easier, and for anyone who is that kind of person, they don’t want to be living in Perth or Brisbane, for example.

      Cheers, Bob

  • djmcbell February 18, 2014, 8:21 pm |

    Alright article – a lot of places down in the SW of England have been flooded since just before Christmas (possibly earlier) and places further up north got some quick floods (I think Yorkshire got a few, but I think they receded quickly). It’s only in the past week, when the Thames Valley and surrounding areas became threatened, that it seems the UK government has shown any interest. Sadly, according to various scientists, this sort of “extreme weather event” is going to become more commonplace in the near future.

    Bob – whilst this is comparing winter in the UK to summer in Oz, it would be good to compare winter in the UK to winter in Oz (so both country’s worst), and vice versa for summer.

    Regardless, here in Yorkshire we’ve had a lot of wind and rain recently, but so far have seen very little in the way of pretty cold temperatures this winter. Frost on only a few mornings, no snow (at least here) so far. Just damp and dismal and drab, meaning we rarely do anything outdoors-related. I’ve got a drain pipe I need to seal properly and have vowed to get round to it, weather permitting.

    • BobinOz February 19, 2014, 4:47 pm |

      Well, if you want to know what winter is like here in Australia, check out my post Pictures of an Australian Winter. It’s not always like that, of course, those pictures are from the Sunshine Coast and not everywhere has wonderful winters like that here.

      Dismal, damp and drab, thanks for reminding me of some of the reasons why I left the UK in the first place.

      Good to hear from you and thanks for commenting, cheers, Bob

      • djmcbell February 19, 2014, 6:09 pm |

        A lot of my family do actually live in Australia (on the coast near Melbourne) and they’ve said they’ve had rather hot temperatures of late. Though I did visit them a few years back in late Nov/Dec and, whilst the temperatures were definitely warm, it still got grey (from time to time, nowhere near as much as here) and rained.

        Though I did find it amusing – my mum over there has an outdoor hot tub and she was watching my 5-year-old nephew in it one day (he just HAD to go in it) in what she considered cold-ish temperatures – so much so she had to wear a coat and gloves. My sister apparently commented that it was about 20 degrees celsius and, back in the UK, that would be t-shirt and shorts weather.

        • BobinOz February 20, 2014, 8:54 pm |

          Yes, your threshold for what is hot and cold changes when you move here, I used to wear shorts in the UK whenever it was sunny and above 18° C, that’s a winter’s day here in Brisbane but in England I used to call it summer.

          Melbourne, by the way, isn’t known for its hot weather.

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