Barely a week to go to Christmas and I’ve heard that Britain is bracing itself for a battering of snow. Here in south-east Queensland, we are also being battered, by storms! Yes, it’s storm season in Australia.
Yesterday afternoon, more than 100,000 homes lost power as a ferocious storm ripped through Brisbane. 28,000 lightning strikes were recorded in the region during the storm, that’s the most strikes in one-day since The Gap was ripped apart by a tornado back in November 2008.
You can see stunning footage of that storm over in my post from last year about our worst storm for 10 years.
Of course, today’s YouTube selection is obvious, but which version, there are so many? If anyone knows of a better version than this, I want to hear about it……
Ah yes, Bing and Bowie. I remember seeing this on Top of the Pops all those years ago.
Happy new year bearcatasia, I hope 2011 sees you get your wish.
Not White Christmas but it’ll bring a tear or two. Der Bingle passed away (1977) just a few weeks after making this video with David Bowie…Merry Christmas to all, may all your wishes come true in the new year ahead. My wish is to be in Tassie permanently by next Christmas : ) .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiXjbI3kRus
It.s been a wet year for us here in the subtropics of Queensland , for sure. Here in Hervey Bay ( up the road a bit from Bob ) we’ve barely had 7 straight days rain free this year ! 2 years ago the grass was brown and crunchy underfoot.
Overseas readers of Bobs great blogsite [ G’day Bob 🙂 ] who are interested in the weather here ( especially East coast ) should read up on the El Nino / La Nina Pacific oceanic cycle and the SOI ( Southern Oscillation Index ) which is an indicator of likely rainfall based against the average.
It wasn’t that long ago that Brisbane’s dams were at near crisis level and now most 100% capacity which is about a 5 year supply !
That’s Oz , and Dorothea MacKellar wrote these words in her poem “My Country” which most true Aussies hold dear –
” I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!”
I came here as a 5 year old from U.K. nearly 51 years ago , I love this country !
I hope all who come here do so as well .
Merry Christmas to all , may your efforts bring just reward 🙂
Hi Gordon
Well here in Brisbane we had a surprisingly rain free day today ourselves. Beautiful sunshine and around 29°C. Made a nice change. I hope you have had a sunny day today too.
That’s a great poem, sums up Australia beautifully. Thanks for sharing it with us. As for El Nino / La Nina, I wrote a post about that. I didn’t go into too much detail, mainly because I didn’t understand it too well. But for what it’s worth, you can read it on my post called The Australian Climate: El Nino and La Nina.
If for no other reason, you can read it to reminisce about when we were last in an El Nino.
And as for those dam levels, when I first arrived here in Australia in November 2007 everything was all brown and crunchy underfoot too. You can read all about what’s happened to those dams since then in my post called Of Course, We Moved to Australia for the Weather….
I am only a wee nipper in this country compared to you Gorden, but already I have fallen in love with this country big time. And I always do hope that anyone else coming here enjoys this place as much as I do. Thanks for your comments.
Cheers
Bob