Before The Storm

On Sunday, the sun was shining.

Mr HP, Miss Seven, her Mum and Dad and I, went for a bush walk.

A leech became attached to my shin.

I now have a nasty reaction to the leech bite.

Today I drove myself to the GP to have it seen to.  Luckily it's not infected.  It's inflamed and at times gets extremely itchy.

I drove in extreme weather for thirty minutes to get to my appointment. Since Sunday night it's hardly stopped raining.

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night. I realised that I had woken because the rain had stopped.  The silence had woken me up.  But it wasn't long before it was raining again.

Before Sunday we'd already had more than our fair share of rain so everything was damp and squishy, hence the leeches (well there were two leeches all up...and five humans)  We came across an interesting variety of fungi on our walk. 

Since Sunday night, Springwood has had around 150mm of rain.  We have been fortunate though, as we've had very little wind and so have been spared the devastation that has struck the coastal regions of the south east of Australia.

Today, Sydney airport was disrupted, railway tracks were flooded, a cruise ship locked out of port, flood rescues carried out, towns devastated as residents watched houses floating down the street, schools closed, and sadly, confirmation of lives lost was announced.

Flash floods are not uncommon in Australia, but it's not often do we experience such immediate devastation from flooding.  In this instance, the accompanying wind would have classed this as a category two tropical cyclone.  But technically, this storm is not a cyclone, because it did not occur over tropical waters, but it is an intense low-pressure system packing winds gusts of up to 135km per hour.