Five favourite kinds of weather

 

For this week’s Fav Five I thought I’d mention some of my favourite weather situations. So in no particular order…

 

Spring Rain

Spring is a marvelous time. With all the flowers about and the end of the cold snap and summer coming, it is a wonderful and positive time. Down in southern Australia we can get the occasional spot of nasty weather during this time – last year was a doozy – we had extreme weather (for us) and floods – did I mention that we are the driest state on the driest continent on the planet? Yes, floods Like I’ve never seen here before, but this isn’t the weather I’m talking about. Spring rains are usually the last gasp of winter here and the rain is patchy, often little more than scattered showers. The temperature has sometimes risen above the twenty degree celcius mark into liveable temperatures (I hate the cold) and we can go out and about. A side effect of this rain is the opportunity for photography.

It creates patches of rain and sun that makes for fabulous lighting. The photo above and below were taken within minutes of each other and there was hail (I know, we had not much shelter from it at the time). It gave the scene so much mood.

 

It was raining while we were driving through the remains of a bushfire six months before in the Port Lincoln National Park. One of the differences between spring and winter rain (apart from the temperature) is the sun is at a higher angle, giving the scene stronger light that it would in a winter shot. The forest was ethereal.

 

And another example of that gorgeous lighting…incidentally the next day.

 

I was right ?#rain #adelaide #adelaideweather #southaustralia #weather

A post shared by Liz Powley (@gumnutinspired) on Sep 3, 2017 at 4:33pm PDT

 

Summer Evenings

Absolutely one of my favourites and with nothing to do with photography. Some of our summer days can be quite brutal with temperatures in the high thirties and into the forties celcius. The highest I can remember is 47C (i think we’ve hit that twice in Adelaide in my lifetime). Up north in the Outback it has reached fifty degrees celcius, halfway to boiling point. So, yeah, it can get hot. If we can, we tend to ‘hibernate’ inside during the day hugging the air conditioner and it isn’t until the evening that we venture out to go places. But those evenings can be gorgeous. To be able to go outside in the simplest of clothing, bare feet, to go to the beach, eat takeaway and watch the waves roll in. It is lovely.

We sometimes take the kids to the playground on summer evenings.

 

Spring Shadows

You might have noticed that I love the warmer weather 😀 Creeping through winter there is one thing I really look forward to – the first hints of spring. And one of the major hints that tells me spring is really here is a particular kind of shadow. The sun moves into position and the shadows that are cast by the trees change in angle and sharpness. The sun gains more strength and looses the shapelessness of winter. When I was younger there was a peach tree directly east of our backyard, hanging over the neighbour’s fence. When the shadows of that tree sharpened and shone directly into our backyard in the morning, I new spring was coming. I look to the shadows in August and September just hanging out for that morning indicator.

 

Baker Days

I mentioned above that we get some really hot weather here sometimes. On those days when it is really hot, if you have to go somewhere without air conditioning it really sucks. Getting into a car that has been baking in that sun can result in burns if you are not careful…well, I might be exaggerating slightly, but to be honest I’ve never held onto the metal belt buckle long enough to test to see if it is hot enough to cook skin. All I know is that it is damn hot 😀 And I’m not going to even mention the steering wheel, the sunglasses I left in the car or the CDs that have been known to warp in the heat. Oh, as a librarian I highly recommend not leaving your paperbacks in a hot car. The heat melts the glue in the binding, which never resets properly and all the pages will fall out. Coke bottles have been known to explode and there is no way my iPad is getting left in there. But anyway, I digress…baker days have one good thing about them. It is too damn hot to do anything, so we all lounge around watching TV. It is a fabulous excuse to get out of housework of any kind, no cooking required because the stove creates heat and we don’t need anymore of that, and while it can be too hot, at least it is not freezing cold.

Going outside does require liberal application of sunscreen, hats and sunglasses, so the answer to that is don’t go outside (unless you have to go to work – cook on the drive in and then freeze in the office because the silly air conditioning has a diploma in cryogenics). But anyway…lazy baker days.

 

 

Summer Rain

On occasion it will rain in summer. Warm rain on hot bitumen is a wonderful smell. We don’t get a lot of rain in summer, in fact I can remember at least one where I don’t think we got any. In recent years with global warming in play, we have been getting a more tropical influence from northern Western Australia, which has brought more rain in summer, good and bad, but for me, having grown up here, there will always be something special about rain in summer – especially rain on Christmas Day.

 

 

And there you have it. Five favourite types of weather. It should be noted here that I haven’t experienced all types of weather yet – I’ve never seen snow, for example (I really need to do something about that). Snow and I might have dissenting opinions on temperature I think.

And since it is now Saturday at twelve minutes past midnight, I’ll sign off. Sharing this with Willy Nilly Friday Five and Five on Friday. Don’t forget to drop by and discover the wonderful fives around the world.

Best wishes,
Liz
(with a yawn)