As for the sea temp, my understanding of the Indian dipole is that it's the same as El Nino, except in the Indian ocean. This is currently a 'positive' phase on Australia's side meaning cooler sea temps, less evaporation, less rain, hotter winds coming off of the interior. Conversely, it has caused floods in east Africa. There may/must be a difference between 'sea-surface' temps and deeper sea temps - obviously - but deep sea water off the coast of Australia is colder than the deep sea water off Africa in the current phase?

Anyway the result is next level climate change here. Baking hot - sky thick with smoke for months - orange sunsets - blood red moons. It's probably not the end of the world, but i guess it's going to look something like this.

According to media reports:

"By the end of November, 1.9m hectares had been burnt in NSW alone, including 800,000 hectares in national parks – 10% of the state’s total national park area. Twenty per cent of the Blue Mountains world heritage area has been affected by fire."

This includes rainforest that has never burned before - ever.

There was some rain last weekend - thought it may have even been enough to douse the fires - but it was followed by a hot windy day and they all kicked up again. 'Thank god for that rain or it could have been horrific. Our local fire was smoking pretty good today though no immediate danger - according to the map it hasn't advanced much closer. Would be nice to see the sat images that the Rural Fire Services have got but don't release to the public - so we could know exactly where it is.

Following week forecast is bloody hot - no rain. The thing is the wind - we did get 50-60kph wind after the rain which wasn't forecast somehow. Nothing big forecast for the coming week - i hope that's right - given the precarious predicament, if there's gonna be big winds that's a huge 'need to know'.