Cold, Wind, and Rain

That pretty much sums up last week in Melbourne. I know I just talked about how wonderful the autumn weather was, but winter seemed to roar in to Victoria after I wrote that post! It does rain quite often here, but typically there will be an occasional or random shower and then it will be sunny again. Last week, however, we had two straight days of nearly constant rain, leaving the ground saturated with water. 

Flooded paths near our house

And the wind…I don’t think you can really understand how cold the wind is here until you actually feel it on your skin. It is essentially coming straight from Antarctica, and it is shockingly cold. I should probably clarify “cold”, because quite a few people reading this post are from Minnesota, where winter can be brutally chilly. Wind chills last week were often below zero Celsius, for example, the air temperature was about 5 degrees Celsius (40 degrees Fahrenheit), but with the wind it felt like -2 degrees, or 28 degrees Fahrenheit. I also think that I notice the cold air more because I walk to work and to the gym most days. It’s one thing to run in the cold, because you warm up after the first five or ten minutes. But my walk is about 20 minutes each way, often into a fierce wind, and by the end I’m usually telling myself that I should have worn a hat and gloves to walk to work! I guess I am simply in denial that I need to wear my winter gear in Oz. :)

On Saturday, I spent all day working at the footy field, and as you can see, the sun was shining brightly, but the field was a disaster from the week's weather. I have seen some wet fields, especially when working in Eastern Baltimore County, but this field was so wet that massive amounts of water sprayed up with every step taken by the players. This was early in the morning, and three games were played on this field over the course of the day. Let's just say my white "work" pants (yes, it was someone's bright idea that sports trainers should be mandated to wear white pants) will never look the same.

As far as the rain goes, I’ve been told that winter is often the rainiest season of them all. Because we arrived in August, we only caught the tail end of winter, which involved a little bit of rain and a few cool days but nothing like we had last week. Of course there are beautiful days as well, and the forecast for the next few days appears to contain sunny skies and pleasant temperatures. However, as I’ve mentioned a few times, you cannot trust a weather forecast in Melbourne!