weather

ray

Some day, wasn't it? Ventured out at 2.30 into the dust storm, trees
down, power down, everything that depended on them well and truly out.
No traffic lights, no trains.
Bought a lamb roast from local Safeway, running emergency spots and cash
registers on generator, which ran out of fuel as I left. Power failed at
home shortly after return.
Certainly a bad day to be on the roads, but a bad day for pretty well
anything. Everyone now share your Melbourne hurricane stories, sure as
hell impressed me.
Cheers,
Ray

TimC

On 2008-04-02, ray (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
> Some day, wasn't it? Ventured out at 2.30 into the dust storm, trees
> down, power down, everything that depended on them well and truly out.
> No traffic lights, no trains.

I was wondering what all the fuss was. Swinburne closed all classes
after a tree fell on a building and rubble was flying around, and
emergency services told all people in the university to stay inside,
and yet, I look at the BoM website which said Melbourne was only
gusting to 45km/h. We had 45km/h winds at work in NSW, and there was
nothing flying around. Then I realise it's 100km/h at the airport.

--
TimC
Probably best see a real doctor and not take too much diagnostic advice
from a bunch of sysadmins who consider the body a meat computer that
needs debugging. -- Anthony de Boer on possible nerve damage in ASR

Gags

"TimC" <tconnors@no.spam.accepted.here-astro.swin.edu.au> wrote in message
news:12071267688719-twc@hexane.ssi.swin.edu.au...
> On 2008-04-02, ray (aka Bruce)
> was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
>> Some day, wasn't it? Ventured out at 2.30 into the dust storm, trees
>> down, power down, everything that depended on them well and truly out.
>> No traffic lights, no trains.
>
> I was wondering what all the fuss was. Swinburne closed all classes
> after a tree fell on a building and rubble was flying around, and
> emergency services told all people in the university to stay inside,
> and yet, I look at the BoM website which said Melbourne was only
> gusting to 45km/h. We had 45km/h winds at work in NSW, and there was
> nothing flying around. Then I realise it's 100km/h at the airport.
>
> --

I left work at a bit after 5pm on the fixie and it was absolutely bucketing
down with rain and it was coming in pretty well sideways due to the wind!!!
It was really gusty and there were plenty of wind squalls happening along
the wet road surface. I caught up to another rider along Wellington St and
when I got to within about 10m or so I was wondering what the hell he was
doing suddenly swerving right in close to the gutter......the next thing I
know I reach the same spot and a massive cross wind puts me in the gutter
too!!!

As I reached the pub on the corner of Wellington and Alexander I ran over
something sharp and my back wheel deflated in a couple of seconds. Ended up
with about a 2cm or so cut in the tyre and so I decided to glue a patch on
the inside of the tyre before putting in a new tube. I have got a bit of
rag in my spares bag and so I was doubled over to keep the rain off the tyre
and then I dried it off, roughed it up, and applied one of the oversized
patches that I carry for just such a situation. I got the new tube in and
managed to make it home without any further issues (apart from getting
soaked!!!).

I got home to discover that a massive branch had fallen from our gum tree
out the front - it was about as round as my thigh where it broke and
probably 6m or so long. The tips of the leaves look like they just brushed
the gutter above our front porch on the way down so I guess we were pretty
lucky in that regard as no damage was done. Where it broke is still hanging
where it split and so I am making sure that the kids stay clear until it
gets cleared away.

I rode the SS in today along the Yarra Trail and got to dodge lots of fallen
branches all the way in and all the way home.

Gotta love that Melbourne weather!!

Gags