Cloud Burst

Being here in Australia I am missing the perpetual rains of Vancouver. In Newcastle, we have had some rain, but nothing that compares to what you get at home. These photos are from the week before last. This is what I consider to be a typical Newcastle storm.


In Newcastle, the rain is very busy. It doesn't have time to hang around all day. Clouds quickly roll in and all of a sudden you are caught in a huge downpour. The water falls so fast that it feels like you are in the bathroom shower.


The water accumulates so quickly that in a lot of places the water on the road comes up above your ankles.


Then, sometimes as quick as 5-10 minutes later, the rain stops and the sun comes out. Most of the time, the rain bursts are quick, but you get just as much rain as in a day in Vancouver - or at least it feels that way.

I know you have been having rain for weeks on end, back at home. I thought these photos would show that the sun doesn't always shine in Australia. In fact, we had a big hail storm a few weeks back. Some of the hail stones were as big as golf balls (no joke). The cars out on the street had a lot of hail damage. Some had broken windsheilds and all had body damage. Car dealerships have been having "Hail today, gone tomorrow" Sales. On some cars you can get up to $9,000 off the tag price, just because of the hail damage done to the body.

Also, just so you know, Yesterday the temperature was 38 degrees celsius. And at 9:00pm, when Edith and I were coming home from work, the temperature was still 30. At home, in our apartment, it is really hot. Our landlord took our bug screens to be fixed - they had holes in them from the hail storm - so our windows are closed. There are too many bugs to even consider opening them. We should have the screens back in a couple weeks. Til then we will just sweat it out.