Hot again with some showers and storms: 14-20 Dec

[Gordon]

Spent the day in Rosebud and had several heavy thundery showers. Back home now to find a welcome 3 mm in the gauge and everything slightly damp. Hardly the autumn break, but better than the crispy dry conditions when we left this morning.

[stevco123]

And officially it's not a record. 26.5 minimum so far but record was 26.6.

Phew.

[Duckey]

Still 30 degrees at 2:45am....doesn't get much fouler than this...can't sleep!

[hillybilly]

Woken at 4am by a huge gust of hot air filtering through the house. Going to be a long tired day

Progs tending to push a decent rain band across. Not big totals but settler for all the dust. Hoping for about 10mm here. There moisture is excellent, but the upslide isn't great.

I hope people don't underestimate the fire threat tomorrow.

Seriously lucky this front isn't at 5pm. That's a horror scenario for Vic. Change isn't really clear in the obs, but should be evident on doppler sometime between 10am and 11am.

[I_Love_Storms]

Yeah it's more a worry for existing fires, not a heap of time for new fires to start before the change fortunately. Winds up to 100kph are going to potentially make existing fires skip containment lines and push South prior to being hit by sw change which will push fire fronts ne

[I_Love_Storms]

The change does look a fair way away from central areas, only a couple of observations out west in sw winds

[Tassiedave]

Launceston has set its all time record high minimum temperature for ANY month. 21 degrees breaks the previous record of 20.9 set in January 2009.

[stevco123]

Geez. 8.30am and already 35 degrees...timing of change is definitely a game changer today

[hillybilly]

Wind change now evident just past Geelong. It seems to be moving a bit quicker than expected



That pace would suggest here by 10:30am.... Will take a while too cool down after it. Progs upped rainfall for today to 5-15mm through central areas.

Lots of records or near missed. Mildura is touch and go for a December Vic record high minimum.

EDIT> Make that 12:00pm. It's moving very slowly up the bay - maybe 30km/hr. Only 50km for it to come...

[droughtbreaker]

Not a great deal of wind here so far. Certainly nowhere near 40-50km/hr.

I'd expect squally conditions near the change but if it's coming through early perhaps this is decreasing potential wind speeds a bit.

Surprised at how well we got away with things yesterday. Most of the fires that started got knocked back pretty quick or at least contained to a reasonable degree. Given that yesterday was basically a December version of Black Saturday I reckon it was a good result. Maybe the arsonists were caught off guard this time around.

[Geoff]

Nasty conditions here this morning, really windy with huge gusts, heard a big branch crash down in one of our paddocks recently. Should ease off when the wind change gets here as we'll be more sheltered from the west. 31C already but may not get much higher if the change comes in the next hour or so.

[I_Love_Storms]

Not really similar to black Saturday at all in my opinion, lower heat, vegetation not as dry, less windy and a ton more humidity in the atmosphere. Black Saturday had about 2% humidity, 100kph wind, 35 days preceding it rain free including 3 days 43,44,45 a week before and temps about 3-4 degrees hotter across the board.

Bad fire day yesterday and today, but black Saturday was a perfect firestorm. Hopefully only get a day like that once every 50-100 years, although I worry they will be more common based on some of the heat we have seen in recent years

[I_Love_Storms]

HB is that proper wind change? Avalon still seems to be 35-36 and a lot of vic still hot?

[Gordon]

Not a great deal of wind here so far. Certainly nowhere near 40-50km/hr.

Same here thank goodness. I figure the closer we can get to the cooler wind change without gales, the better.

Watching the Elaine-Scotsburn fire to our south, the smoke cloud looks less dramatic than early this morning; though of course that's a very sketchy observation from this distance.

[Geoff]

I can only assume those of you not suffering fierce wind this morning are not exposed to the north like we are, always get blasted from the north here.
The fallen branch is a 10 metre long mountain ash limb, about 20cm thick, at least it had the decency to drop right next to the bonfire. A smaller one fell right where I was stood after I left the scene - it's dangerous out there even without fires!

[Gordon]

Being right on a ridge top at 620 m asl we usually get hammered by strong northerlies Geoff but miraculously not today for some reason. We've just gone WSW too.

Hope it eases for you soon - those northerly gales are the pits, especially on a bad fire day.

[Rivergirl]

Two fires below us on Mountain Highway within 14 hours. The first one set fire to the bush at 12.45am Saturday morning. The limo caught fire on the way to a wedding at 4.20pm

[Rivergirl]

That was lucky Geoff. You wouldn't want to be in the way

[Geoff]

I'm staying inside until the cool change arrives Robyn!
Your big pine trees must be dancing a bit!

[Rivergirl]

Yes they sure are Geoff, always a worry. Those fires were just below us on the Mountain highway so that was a worry too. I know how fast fires travel uphill. They were just 2kms below us