A tribute to Melbourne weather

Courtesy of Triple M, Australia

You don't know what you've got until it's gone. 

You won't read this anywhere else. No one appreciates Melbourne weather. No one. Of all the states of Australia, Victoria has the shittiest weather. 

Australia! Land of the Gold Coast and beaches and sunshine! 

Except for Melbourne, on the same latitude as Wellington, which should say enough (sideways rain and bitter cold and water which is unswimmable).

Everybody complains about Melbourne's unpredictability and ability to surprise. I believe the Crowded House track Four Seasons in One Day was inspired by Melbourne, or was it Auckland? Either way, out of the two, Melbourne weather is still better. 

When I first got to Melbourne I was instructed by those with better knowledge than I to dress "in layers". Thin layers. It took me years to get used to, so the present experience is jarring to say the least.

This post is a tribute to what I miss right now.  

It's easiest to break it up into seasons. 

Summer

Of the four years I've lived in Melbourne, summer is always a warmish spell scattered with UNBEARABLY HOT DAYS. I'm not kidding, I endured four days of 40 degree + (Celsius) heat in 2014, when the infrastructure did not cope so electricity failures occurred in some public buildings. 

Air conditioning was not a commodity to be enjoyed by all, including myself, as funds did not stretch to such a luxurious thing.

I turned to Google. Apparently, if you keep your neck and feet cool with wet towels this will lower your body heat. It got me a few hours sleep that week. I survived by going to my office job and cooling myself there.

What was crazy about that heatwave was that in the following years, it never reached that extreme temperature again - but I was always ready, always alert for the next time. Lol, God clearly likes to have a laugh when we try to prepare. Speaking of (oh dear) ...

It isn't really a laugh because sometimes as a result of these dry heatwaves there are terrible, catastrophic bush fires in Victoria, such as Black Saturday, which we shall never forget. And when there are tragedies such as this, companion animals get lost among the fray, but they are not always recorded in these tolls.

I didn't mean for this post to take a dark note!

I actually love summer in Melbourne. Even though it has reached 44 degrees at one stage for me, it is somehow always bearable because of the dry climate. The streets are quiet, office productivity is low and there is always a cool water oasis in which you can immerse yourself. 

Autumn

Hot sultry nights and days. Also dry, like the summer. More bearable. No 40 degree days but many, many 30 degree days. Also many, many 25 degree days (and they don't seem as warm because the air is so dry).

What more could a human wish for than a sunny, 30 degree day?

But wait, there is also "the change", or "the cool change". This is when, at night during a hot day in Melbourne, you will suddenly experience up to a 10 degree change in temperature within the space of 20 minutes. 

Nights can be as cold as the days are warm. 

Winter

Oh dear. Not a fan. I was never a fan. 

Winter in Melbourne is as bad as winter should be. 

Sure, it doesn't snow, but it gets bitterly cold. It catches you off guard, always.

My tip for the winter is to take vitamin D, that helps a bit. It took me two winters to learn that.

I used to wear thermals, but as a vegan I won't purchase any more wool on principle (granted I still have those damn thermals for London and I don't plan on wasting them). 

Winter is shit in Melbourne but it's not as shit as a Dublin winter (which I will never do again). It's also not as shit as an Auckland winter (which I will probably do again).

And then suddenly...

Spring

Springs on you. Also not a fan of spring. It's that season where the weather is random and you're always waiting for summer to arrive. This is true of Melbourne, whose spring isn't distinguishable from its summer, it's too up and down. As in more up and down than normal Melbourne weather. 

The point of this post is that I really miss the familiarity of Melbourne weather. And the dryness,

My life, at the moment, constitutes a wasted 30 minutes in the morning of hair straightening, as London weather derails it in every way it can. 

Most of all I miss the dry air, where straightened hair stays straight and you don't feel the cloying humidity of heat exaggerated.

I miss not having to use the word moist when I'm not talking about a cake.

And I'm learning that no matter where you are, you can always talk / complain about the weather when there is nothing else to say.