Roll Clouds

There are two seasons here, summer and the rest of the year. Now in most parts of the world, summer is something to look forward to, but here, most people just can't wait for summer to be over and done with. We're practically in the tropics, at the southern limit of the monsoon belt, so summer is wet and very hot. People wind up the airconditioners to be comfortable and the water can get too warm for swimming. Further north, you can't even go swimming because of the stingers, but Tannum is at the southernmost limit of stinger territory, strong northerly winds for a few days will bring them down through the narrows as far as Gladstone.

I love the summer though (as I love all seasons here). You finally get some weather, as opposed to day in, day out sunshine for the other three seasons. Clouds and storms are a welcome change to the monotony of endless sunshine. And the storms can be fun, even frightening.

Thunderstorms arrive regularly and are often accompanied by hail and strong winds. One storm a few years ago brought down the roof of the local supermarket because of all the ice that piled up there, and destroyed a hundred new cars in a local dealership. Trees had all their leaves stripped bare, but the destruction was confined to a very narrow path. So if storms look imminent, we sit and watch the web weather radar and we can tell if we should move cars indoors just in case.



During storms you can get some spectacular cloud formations. Very occasionally, you get to see roll clouds which are spectacular to watch and move quickly across the sky.



On this occasion, there were clouds moving in different directions all over the sky, roiling around. The magpies didn't seem too worried about it.