Tropical seasons

Today was THE DAY (not "D" Day), a pivotal day in our seasons here. High sun was directly overhead. Now it won't be overhead again until February. So, along with the northern hemisphere, we will have the sun to our south for that time.

Of course that's a fixed event, unlike the actual play out of the seasons. This year the rains have been late and the heat pretty oppresive. Some areas to the east of my place are continuing to miss out on the rains. However, here over the past several days rain and storms have finally made their appearance. And you should see the difference it's made to the gardens.

Working away from home for the fortnight makes even slow changes more noticeable. Today when I got back some plants had really rocketed along. Most noticeable were the Amorphophallus. The bulbifer went from a shoot of about 5 centimetres to 105 centimetres. And the titanum went from about 37 centimetres to 151 centimetres.

A lot of people curse the heat and humidity. But without the humidity there's no rain. And my garden looks very happy after the rain. So, no real point to this post, just that I feel great the rains have finally come.

The photo shows a helicopter view of some of the bush fires I've been fighting the past two weeks.

Happy rains to you. If you've been fighting fires then rain is even more welcome. We've had rain for the last 2 days as well, ours is a cooling rain the result of cold storms up in the north. Here it just brings welcome cooling and a fresh smell to the air. It's only about 30°C today, 85°F, and it feels wonderful. We will enter the cooler/drier months now, I had to put a blanket on the bed for one night last week and hope to need it again soon.

I know the feeling when you can snuggle up with a blanket, but we don't often get that here. Did a quick check of our weather records for this year, from January up until now (November). There were 2 days of 29C and 3 of 30C. That's over a 10 month period which includes the whole of winter. All the rest were over 30C. It's very rare for our temperatures to only get to 30C any time of year. But when those rains come it's a whole new world and everything looks so much more alive.

i am glad to hear you got rain, Tbreeze! it is very dry here, and everything looks dead. the rain is late, usually we get it by end of October on the latest. i water my garden, so its green, but some rain would be very good.
our temps are now in the early thirties too, sometimes down to 27C, though not much. our winter temps sometimes go down to 15C, but our summer temps can get into the early forties. humidity is usually sky high too.
Isaac

Thanks Isaac. Putting up with the long dry times of the climate is bad enough. But dry when it's suppose to be raining is beyond the limits. We've had 3 months of temps between 35C and 40C. At least with the rains the temps stay down around 35C. Today's rain didn't materialise, hope I didn't jinx it. Here's hoping you get your fair share of it.

mmm..sounds like our horrible summer this year!

Randy, except it was the last month of winter and 2 months of spring. We've another month of spring to go before summer.

I typically categorize it as wet and dry seasons.

Generally that's how it's categorised here, but with the transitions being called the "Build-up" and the "Knock'em Down" (the latter sometimes also called the "Build-down").

It's interesting though that the Aborigines here have it graded into 6 seasons. There's the hot rainless time, the hot stormy time, the monsoon, stormy end of wet, the early dry, the cooler nights dry.

aahh..there ya go..that one makes sense!