A damp but pleasant Christmas

The clouds clung close to the hills of Robertson on Christmas Day and continued to do so today ("Boxing Day").
I have re-lit the heaters (yes, even the little gas heater, in the lounge room, as well as the electric oil-filled column heater in the bedroom). So much for Copenhagen. I mostly use the heaters to help keep the house dry, especially as Zoe is coming up tomorrow. Damp-induced mold is a perennial problem in houses in Robertson. So much for the Summer Solstice.

What has driven this weather is the tail end of Cyclone Laurence, which lashed the north-west coast of Australia - crossing the coastline in "The Kimberley". It has tracked across Western Australia, dumping great volumes of rain in the Pilbara, crossing into northern South Australia and the Northern Territory, and entering western NSW, where it has produced heavy, but very useful rain in the western zone, and the north-west districts, and even down as far as Mudgee, and Young.

This pattern of rain is not unusual, just uncommon.
In fact it is rain like this which is the lifeblood of the so-called Foodbowl of Australia (the Murray-Darling Basin), especially, in this case the Northern Basin of the Murray-Darling river system.

This one has started further south and west than many, and has continued to track somewhat further south than normal.Rain Depression which started as Cyclone Laurence.
It is the intense low south of Tasmania which has brought
the cold weather to Robertson.
The moist weather from the ex-cyclone Laurence
ended up just further west.Christmas Day, 5:00 am EDT
Dumping rain in central western NSW.
The remains of the "weather system" will track north from now on.

Lets hope we get a couple more of these cyclonic "washes" over this coming season. Another dump coming down from the Gulf of Carpentaria would match this rainfall nicely, to help central Queensland and the north-western tributaries of the Darling River, especially the Culgoa and Paroo Rivers.

Of course, we know that such cyclones are capable of causing immense damage and loss of life, but this cyclone, although rated at a Category 5 (as severe as Cyclone Tracy) managed to drift across largely unpopulated areas, and caused no loss of life.

By contrast, the most famous of Australia's cyclones, Cyclone Tracy "killed 71 people, caused $837 million in damage (1974 AUD) and destroyed more than 70 percent of Darwin's buildings, including 80 percent of houses. Tracy left homeless more than 20,000 out of the 49,000 inhabitants of the city prior to landfall and required the evacuation of over 30,000 people." Source: Wikipedia > Cyclone Tracy.

Nobody wants another one like that!