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February2020

Weather diary page

Feb 5, Aomori: Major storm has been going over the last few days, but only last night turned to snow. It looks like we've had about 6-8" so far and it's still coming down. It's supposed to snow for the next few days with highs between -1 to 1. We've had two snowfalls so far this year, but they both melted quickly and were not terribly disruptive. This is the first real snowfall we've had. it's been an unusually warm, dry winter until now.

Feb 9, NR: Wham-bam thunderstorm going on right now - hope it doesn't knock the bloody power out again for 10 hours like the last one did. Some of the thunder claps are making the whole house shudder. There's a currently a 'severe thunderstorm warning' for my area - radar shows the rain feeding into here from the north. Ever since the heat broke about a week ago the story has been rain and more rain. Was waiting for it to cloud over so i could get some lawn mowing in before the storm but it went from brutal heat to heavy rain in the space of 30 minutes - has basically rained ever since. Flooding in Byron Bay where they had 300 mm in 24 hrs - probably 600 mm over 3-4 days. Here we've probably had about 150-200 mm in the last week - nothing too torrential but steady rain - with a few breaks in the afternoon. Whereas last year the rain came late, not starting until the end of Feb - this year it's come at the traditional time. If i was organized, which i'm not, then i could grow anything in these conditions - 'set and forget' style. As it is, planted a stack of lettuce, peas, some melon, tomatoes, bok choi - but a long way off properly utilizing these conditions. Summer tomato which i planted in late Sep is growing well - though no fruit yet. Drainage system is working ok but still needs more work. Water pooling in back yard and some flowing back into 'carport'. Need to dig a new drain on carport/north side. More complicated than Taidong coz it's so flat here - not obvious which way the water flows and it's a long way to get the water to a drop off point. Ground is so saturated that i'd be vulnerable to a flood from the creek bursting its banks if there was a sustained downpour. Channel-billed cuckoo still around but seems less. No sign of corellas for several months

Feb 21, Aomori: February has been generally above average in temps and below average in precipitation. We had one large storm about a 8 days ago that dumped 1 1/2 feet of snow on us, which promptly melted within three days or so. Today was beautiful with a high of 7 and low of -1. Highs are generally in the low single digits with lows around -3. We went to the lake two days ago to see the geese and swans duck, and they were nowhere to be found. Odd.

Feb 26, Aomori: Snowstorm from hell has arrived. Woke up with about 5" of wet, heavy snow, and it's still coming down in buckets. It's supposed to snow for the next week. Low's just below freezing, highs just above.

Feb 29, NR: Been away for a week in Tasmania but the rain continued here including a cloud burst on Feb 26 that dropped "4 inches in an hour" according to my neighbour. Max temps around 28-30C with overnight lows of 19-20. Very humid. Grass growing rate is slowing down. Rains on Feb 9 ended up killing a lot of stuff in the vegie patch, including summer tomatoes, due to the ground becoming waterlogged. Went from looking vigourous to dead in the space of a day. Vegie patch needs to be elevated with better drainage to survive in future. Overall, guessing temps were about ave for Feb but with rainfall well above ave. We'd have had around 400 mm across the month.