krazy kat's korner

Those of you from colder climes, don't laugh! This is bloody cold for us!


Sydney's week of cold weather continues, with the city recording its coldest June morning since 1949 when temperatures dived to 4.3 degrees [39.7F].

The city recorded its minimum just before 6am, with the mercury sitting on 6.2 degrees [43F] at 9am.

Sydney Airport dropped to 3.2 degrees [37.7] just before 5am, its coldest June morning recording since 1985.

Richmond again got below freezing point, recording -4.8 degrees [23.4F], its coldest morning since 1992.

Other western Sydney suburbs dropped below zero, including Penrith which rose to just 0.1 degrees [32F] at 8am.

Weatherzone meteorologist Rosebud Lambert said there will be at least one more cold morning this week before temperatures start to rise.

"It is all being caused by a belt of high pressure that is over us right now, that is bringing clear skies and still conditions and cold mornings," she said.

"We will have another cold morning tomorrow but after that it should be a bit more survivable."

Ms Lambert said a cold front will bring clouds and a little rain to Sydney over the weekend, but will indtead lead to slightly warmer weather.


When my sister got up at 6:30 it was 3.4 C (38.1 F) outside according to our thermometer. This is our 4th very cold morning in a row.
Saturday morning - 13.5C [56.3F] Then a cold front came through...
Sunday morning - 6.7C [44F]
Monday morning - 5.5C [42F]
Tuesday morning - 4.7C [40.5F] (was the coldest since 1983, until this morning)

Atrocious weather yesterday. From around 4pm to about 4am this morning, we had bands of torrential rain. Each would last about 1/2 an hour, with almost continuous heavy rain between 1 and 3am. Mum and I were dealing with leaks at 3am.

It moved in a pretty narrow band, the same suburbs in northern Sydney were getting hit each time.

At Hornsby we had 158mm (6 inches!) in the 24 hours to 9am this morning. Berowra, which is north of us, got 209mm. Turramurra, which is 15 minutes away and always a wet spot, had 198mm (8 inches!). Frenchs Forest had 195mm, Belrose 180mm, and West Pennant Hills and Castle Hill each had 168mm.

It was the type of rain that puts you on edge.

Last Saturday was the coldest September day in 30-odd years - 13C (55F).

This Saturday was the equal hottest day of the year - 32C (90F).

Bloody ridiculous. Going to be a warm night

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Council election voting across NSW today. Such fun. *eye roll* At least it looks like we've kept our Green.

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I've started making phone calls to our households at work. Not many, but more than enough. I hate phones with a passion, it's a definite anxiety trigger.

I told vanwasigma last week, she was thrilled and thought it was great that I'd taken the (forced) step. D, one of the recruiters, said she'd heard me on the phone and I was great, and she was proud of me :) And on Friday one of the helpline girls said I had a great phone manner.

I've never been sure how I am on the phone, so that makes me feel better that maybe I'm doing the right thing.

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Phantom in 14 hours. Final performance in Sydney. We might even see Ana Marina, who actually does exist - sister's friend had a confirmed sighting the other week. We'd been wondering.

To lifeasanamazon, who is incredibly naughty and gorgeous and a total sweetheart. There were tears.

To mandysbitch, for the love meme, and to rinkle and sangerin for adding to my smiles. I was really touched.

To ex-tropical cyclones Odette and George. You may both have lived only a day or so, but you've bumped up my season total to 4 and will forever be in my heart. Now I just need another 3-5 in the next 2 months.

To my gorgeous Lara Kate, for sleeping in my arms like, you guessed it, a baby. My upper arm wasn't so pleased 3/4s of an hour later, but it was wonderful.

But not so much thanks to Huey for the thunder and lightning very very frightening display tonight. There were up to half a dozen extremely close lightning strikes, the ones that sound like a massive crack/gunshot.

Bloody big storm in SW Sydney mid afternoon. I heard on the radio that it had hit around Campbelltown and called home, as that's my brother's area and he's had a leaky roof since the last big downpour 2 weeks ago (the bloke's coming to fix it tomorrow). Sure enough, it was leaking into the garage again and he was running around with containers (luckily it was his day off). The tarps stayed on the roof thankfully, which helped minimise it. He said the rain was coming in at about a 45 degree angle, there was thunder, lightning, hail, the sky was green...

Menangle, which isn't far from him, had 84mm (over 3 inches) in a short period of time. A dozen cars in a school carpark ended up being submerged, several swept up and over a 7 foot fence. One then got trapped in a culvert and caused the road to flood. The shopping centre just up the road from my brother was evacuated, and its roof partially collapsed.

M said that his pool was overflowing, and that the street was a river, with the water up over the curb and partway up the driveway. He lives next door to an oval, and it was a lake.

( let's go swimming at the oval )

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Last night there was a massive hail storm in Canberra, deep enough to still be hanging around nearly 12 hours later in hail drifts. Lots of cars caught in flash flooding, sliding on the hail...damage to a number of public buildings/businesses, including the Australian National University.

( hail drifts )

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And it looks like a tropical cyclone is about to form in the Coral Sea. Apparently if it does it will be the biggest size-wise they've seen in about 40 years. Will be number 3 for the season...now that El Nino is over, I'm hoping it might be a bit busier in March/April. Otherwise I'm going to be totally off for my forecast. It's been very quiet.

Finished my season 3 The Pretender dvds tonight. I'd forgotten how good the finale, "Donoterase", was.

That gorgeous scene of Miss Parker with Jarod clone, and then later talking to Syd about him and the look on her face. And Jarod pretty much sacrificing himself to get Parker to safety. She had some fabulous outfits - especially the leather pants/long leather coat/(snake skin?) shirt. And Parker and Broots and their cute little asses (I have a little thing for Parker/Broots - she'd kill him, but he'd get a thrill).

Actually my sister's now asking for Dean (Supernatural)/Miss Parker fic, if anyone wants to help out... In my case, if anyone can direct me to some Dean/Ellen...

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Watching Heroes last night, mum cracked us up. Only the Aussies will get this, but she's decided Mr. Bennet is a ringer for one of our former federal pollies. She just pointed out the resemblance to start with, and then starting referring to moments in the episode with, "you know when Mark Latham..."

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So so tired of this bloody humidity. Even though it was low 20s (low 70Fs) today, the humidity made it uncomfortable. The last week we've been averaging high 20s-low 30s (80-90F), and with over 70% humidity, it's been close to unbearable. February sucks, though even January was on the unpleasant side.

Rain that fell over Sydney's water catchment areas early this week has increased dam levels by more than three per cent, the Sydney Catchment Authority says.

At 3pm today, the available storage in Sydney's water supply reservoirs was 37.0 per cent, an increase of 3.1 per cent on last week's figures, the authority said.

The increased levels are a result of runoff from falls of more than 100 millimetres across many of the catchment areas, including those for Sydney's main supply, Warragamba Dam.

Warragamba has risen 1.4 per cent to 33.9 per cent capacity, the authority said.

Up to two billion litres a day has been flowing into all the dams, providing an extra eight weeks' supply for Sydney.


And if more heavy rain falls in the catchment area in the next while, the ground is moist enough for any rain to pretty much be pure runoff. Back in 1998, Warragamba went from 68% capacity to 100% in 2 weeks.

From the Sydney Catchment Authority website:

This time last week:

During the week the following rainfall (approximately) was recorded in the catchments:

* Warragamba – 5 mm
* Upper Nepean – Less than 5 mm
* Woronora - 5 mm
* Shoalhaven – 10 mm
* Blue Mountains – 20 mm.

As at 3 p.m. Thursday, 8 February 2007, the inflow rate to Warragamba Dam was negligible and to Tallowa Dam was 20 megalitres per day.


And today's report:

During the week the following rainfall (approximately) was recorded in the catchments:

* Warragamba – 70 mm
* Upper Nepean – 175 mm
* Woronora - 140 mm
* Shoalhaven – 145 mm
* Blue Mountains – 130 mm.

As at 3 p.m. Thursday, 15 February 2007, the inflow rate to Warragamba Dam including Shoalhaven transfers was 1,750 megalitres per day and to Tallowa Dam was 1,800 megalitres per day.

Tallowa Dam (in the Shoalhaven area) is now full. It's used to supplement Warragamba.

Mostly dry today. In the 24 hours up to 9am this morning, we received somewhere around/between 51 (~2 inches) and 72mm (~3 inches) (two closest rainfall readings to us). Which over the 3 days amounts to 4-5 inches. The grass already looks greener.

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Bubby Lara came to dinner. I cuddled her for quite a while, she fussed a bit because she was tired and I had to walk around with her. Her little eyes would be nearly closed, but as soon as I sat down, they were open again. K said she can sense the difference in air pressure ;)

3 months old in 4 days. And still gorgeous. And she smiled at me :)

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Doctor wasn't as bad as I feared. Mum nearly killed some brats in the waiting room. Imagine Lynette and her 3 sons from DH (2 school age and the other around 2 - the 2 year old was an angel in comparison to the older two). The receptionist had to come in and tell them to be quiet, and she said afterwards that they're always trouble and the mother's had a go at her before when she's asked them to stop mucking around. Mum was getting to the point where she was going to say something. She brought up 4 kids, including 2 boys close in age (who couldn't be near each other without thumping each other), but we knew that when out in public you were to be on your best behaviour. Shopkeepers used to tell mum they were happy to have us in their shops, she could even take us into places with breakables - we knew not to touch or run around.

This woman had next to no control, the eldest boy pretty much laughed at her when she tried to pull him into line. When we went in there was also an older lady in there, she left and a younger lady came in. After the brats went into their appointment, the younger lady said that she was there with her 4.5 month old, and the older lady was her mother. Her mother had sent her into the waiting room to "see how not to bring up children".

I'll have to see my GP again soon. He has to draw up a mental health care plan, hoping to get onto one of the programs so I can get a Medicare rebate on some of my counselling.

Talked to him about my chronic tiredness, to see whether he had any ideas. He thinks it's a part and parcel with the arthritis/circulation problems, rather than being something separate. Which is pretty much the conclusion we came to :( It's difficult when they still can't put a name to the arthritis beyond "inflammatory" and I have symptoms from a number of different conditions instead of just one.

But the heavy coastal falls brought surprises for some. A caller from the Hunter Valley told ABC radio yesterday that his ducks had never seen rain before, and ran for cover when the heavens opened. - hahaha! Poor duckies.

The rain has cleared. Only a tiny bit on the radar, hasn't rained here for most of the evening. Been an amazing 3 days.

While it would be good if some stormwater could be harvested, if I hear one more person say the water is being wasted, I'm going to punch them out! If Sydney wasn't here, guess where that rain/runoff would be going??? Into the rivers and out to sea! Fancy that. It's called the natural water cycle. And runoff is needed to keep the ground moist, and flush rivers/creeks etc. If you harvested all stormwater, you'd be damaging the environment.

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Mainly had one of the student physios, Heidi from Norway. Nick's practice takes students from Europe/US/Canada. Apparently physio students who come down to Oz for work experience are highly sought after when they get home.

She managed to crack both my hips at the same time! That's an impressive feat. My right hip is usually reasonably easy to crack (I can do it myself), but my left hip is really stubborn, even with force. Yet she barely put any force into it and they both cracked really well. Was a bit of a shock, very noisy and hurt a little.

So hate Nick cracking my neck. Apart from it just being very wrong, I'm always freaked he's going to break my neck.

Shoulder/neck still stiff, but seems to be settling down. *fingers crossed*

GP tomorrow, few things to sort out. Including some unpleasantness I'd rather not be there for :\

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Been transferring some of my cds to my palm pilot, so have more music for work. Took some trial and error, the instructions in real player weren't straight forward. Was transferring some Mandy Patinkin cds, and I smiled when I saw "with guest artist Kristin Chenoweth". At least I know who she is now!

Here's the rainfall maps for the last 2 days in NSW. The red dots is 100mm+, which is 4 inches+. The cluster of green, with the orange and couple of red dots on the lower left side, on the second map is the Greater Sydney region.