December2020
Weather diary page
Dec 5, Northern Rivers: Some storm activity over last few days - nothing too dramatic. Mid-30's heatwave conditions the rest of the time. Peaches starting to ripen.
Dec 9, Aomori: December has seen a slow but steady decline in temperatures, with it dipping below 0 most nights. The highs have not been over 10 and likely never will. Today the low was around 0 and the high around 5, with tomorrow forecast to be the same. Partly sunny. No snow on the ground. Low wind. Overall not a bad day.
Dec 10, NR: After the heatwave, a surprise few days of moderate weather - but hot again now. Have been trying to get the shed finished before the biblical deluge that's supposedly coming, starting tomorrow evening. Up to 240 mil forecast over 3 days! Had the Bobcat guy in last week to do some sloping work to get the water running off to towards a drain we dug last year and and he's coming tomorrow to dig another on the other side of the house. Will get to see if it works or not pretty quickly. Two scaly-breasted lorikeets turned up today for feeding time - haven't seen them for over a year. Smaller than the rainbow lorikeet but that same cocky gameness.
Dec 13, NR: Rain event has arrived, and exceeded the forecasts. 472mm recorded in 24 hr period in Springbrook on the NSW-Qld border. Cyclone has formed off the coast right on the border - wind gusts up to 100 kmh. Estimate we've had around 200 mil here so far - poured all night. Water is sitting around on land but drains are functioning reasonably well. Small dam has filled up overnight - kind of worried when it overflows, which it will, where the water will go. Right now the rain has stopped and it's quite windy.
Dec 13, Aomori: December has been relatively mild so far, with highs approaching 10 and lows around 0-5. This is all forecast to change starting tonight as a system rolls in. High today of 3, lows overnight of -3, and the week degrades from there, or so it's forecast. I anticipate a lot of snow in the coming days, the first big snow(s), but we'll see.
Dec 15, Aomori: We've had over a foot, foot and a half of snow since last night, and it's still coming down hard. It's supposed to snow for the next two days. It's -4 at 11:00AM it's not going up.
Dec 16, Aomori: Still snowing. High today of -2. It was -6 at 6AM. There was an additional 3-4" this morning and it looks like we'll get at least that much more today.
Dec 16, NR: Just when it looked like the worst of the rain was over, we got smashed today. Seems to be cyclone tail action as it's dragged over us on its way south. Up to 40 mm was predicted, we got over 180 in a 2-3 hour downpour. I was surprised how well the ground handled the previous days' deluge - it had been so dry that it gulped a lot of the water up, but then it did get saturated. Today's rain was a bridge too far. The creek came up very fast - got to within about 60-70 metres from the house. All the lower level on the property was flooded - highest i've seen. Up to power lines on the south side, gum trees on the east, and paddock gate on the north side. I could see the river from the porch as well as the back door. Electric fence was submerged, as were all the 300 native trees i planted - will find out tomorrow if any survived. My guess is if the house was to go under it would come from the north side as that ended up being the closest. One more hour of rain at that level would probably have been enough. We've had around 450 mil over the 4-5 days of the whole event. (Just spoke to farmer Dan - he's got a rain gauge - says we've had 540mm.) Rain is forecast every day for the next week but not torrential - though it wasn't supposed to be like that today either. We'll see.
Dec 18, Aomori: We had about 2-3 more inches of snow overnight. It's sunny, calm, and very pleasant at 1:30PM, but it won't last with more snow expected tonight and all day tomorrow. I'm guessing there's close to two feet on the ground.
Dec 19, Aomori: Temperature at -6C at 6:30AM with high today forecast to be -3, so not much movement there. It's supposed to snow all day today and all day tomorrow. We had at least another 6" overnight.
Dec 22, Aomori: We're having a heat wave with sunny weather and a high today of 6C. The roads are an absolute, slushy mess. It's going to be an interesting week because this warm weather is meant to stick around for a couple more days, then freezing weather will return and all this melting snow will turn to ice.
Dec 24, Aomori: Rain with a high of 7C today.
Dec 25, NR: Trees survived fine - but mulch was swept away. Replaced with grass cuttings. Creek receded fast - the next day it looked normal level. It caused some erosion - biggish cave-in of the bank at middle tree planting site - stopped just before trees. They're not big enough to have a bank reinforcement effect yet, but reminds me why i'm planting them. New baby butcher bird appeared - first venture out of the nest. Found a few 'wild mushrooms' after the flood - thought they only came out in cool weather + rain but seems possible in summer as well if wet enough.
Dec 26, Aomori: We had what looks like 4-5 inches of snow overnight. High today forecast to be 1C. Under this new snow will be ice.
Dec 30, Aomori: We had over a foot of snow overnight. It's supposed to keep snowing through tomorrow.
Dec 31, Aomori: Another 4 inches or so of snow overnight with more on the way today. Low of -8C at 7:00AM and the high is forecast to be -4C. Ditto that for tomorrow. So we're ending the year with a lot of snow on the ground. I went walking in the side yard yesterday and it was nearly up to my knees, so there's over 2 feet on the ground.