Vic: Warm start then maybe some rain - 1st to 14th Mar 2016

[hillybilly]

Starting to feel like Bill Murray :p here in FC. Another foggy drizzly morning. Good for the garden...though not really adding up. Under the trees it's starting get quite wet from all the drips, but in the lee of the trees things are still pretty dry. Looks like this humidity has got another day or two to run.

Went for a drive around the Yarra Valley yesterday, from FC->Warburton->Donna Buang->Heallsville->Coldstream->FC. Really highlighted how the weather in these situations (and indeed the whole of summer) has been so patchy. Super foggy in Ferny Creek, dropped below fog by Olinda, cloudy out to Warburton, then driving up to Donna Buang we popped out of the cloud and it got warmer. Was about 4C warmer at the top than the bottom. Driving down the otherside dropped into fog.

It's exceptionally dry in the northern part of the Yarra Valley with dams really low and the vines and trees scorched and looking stressed. The southern half is green and things look quite normal. Sadly, the hot summer has take it's toll in the forest - a few more Antarctic Beech have died as have a a couple of very large ash trees.

Here's a couple of photos from the hang glider launch site on Donna Buang Road.




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[Geoff]

1mm of drizzle in the early hours keeping the surface damp, but wont raise the water table much (goodness only knows how far down that is now, I haven't found anything but dust when I've been digging holes for planting).
Models seem to roughly agree on 10mm at the end of this week which will certainly help things along. Maybe we're going through a gradual transition bit by bit into wetter weather rather than a dramatic change, which is fine by me.