WTF's going on with the weather?

wobblygong

wobblygong

Street Tracker
Spent most of January swanning around the countryside hav'n a ball.
A week up on the Queensland Gold Coast sunning and swimming then 5 days on a solo road trip on the Bonnie down south of Sydney then over to the coast to hook up with Forum member otherwise in Wollongong. (Ride report with pics coming.)
No sooner had I arrived home and given the bike a tub when it was pack the car and head off with all our children & grandchildren to a rented house by the beach for the remainder of the month....Life is good!!
WTF's this got to do with weather I hear you ask?
This......During January, the entire Aussie continent experienced crazy weather patterns and I get back home last week to find that one or more of the 7 severe electrical storms we'd copped over a period of 7 days had "cooked" my modem and fucked up my stereo system. I don't know which was worse, no Internet or not being able to play my tunes.
If these storms, along with day after day of heatwave conditions (temps over 40 degrees C and as high as 48 degrees) are not worrying enough, I check the forum and see you guys in the northern hemisphere are receiving record snow falls or flooding or violent damaging wind storms or all of the above.
This question was asked at a BBQ I was at last week and I'll put the same question to you guys......Is the climate actually changing and the temps are rising/falling OR is it that we're getting older and our bodies can't cope with the extremes of heat or cold as well as they did when we were younger?
 
O

otherwise

750cc
An old family friend, 90 years old and still runs 3,000 sheep and has about 2,000 acres under wheat keeps saying, "nothing is changing, you just haven't been around long enough to remember the last time it was like this". He is still mentally sharp and very strong for an old bloke. I think he is right. The big thing is we now have instant communication and think too much. If we became less sensitive and toughened up a bit we'd accept the world is a hard place and it's the tough who survive.
Now off the soap box and about to sit back with a nice Merlot and some Tasmanian Fetta in the air conditioned living room.
:wave:
 
Sal Paradise

Sal Paradise

Hooligan
One thing I have learned on this forum is that I HAVE to get to Australia some day.Your economy is solid, you can ride way out in "the bush" and it seems to stay pretty hot, all of which I like.

We are freezing to death in North America right now. The other night James Taylor gave a benefit concert for Haiti near here and ( I listened on the radio )he joked about the cold weather and " the empty promise of global warming". Yeah. Something is changing, but its not what we'd hoped.

Last summer was the wettest we'd ever had. I talked to my friend who is 80 and has lived on the farm all his life. 2009 was his wettest year ever. They couldn't bail any hay because the sun didn't shine.My oldcar died and I used my bike to commute for half the summer until I got a new car. We had thunderstorms like I had never seen. Seemed like every day. During one of those storms one of my neighbors was rolling an extension chord. He was killed instantly , 35 years old with a wife and young children. After that the whole neighborhood would go inside at the first rumble of thunder. I can't say for sure but it seems worse than when I was a kid.
 
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Hamr Mark

Hamr Mark

TT Racer
Last summer for us Canucks was waay to wet. Spent more time in the cage then on the bike. So far this winter, I have only had to shovel once, and I didn't even need to do that for it all melted 2 days later. We have some cold, -20c type days, but for the most part it has been great. Still can't get out on the bike, but at least I don't have to drive through any snow. I hear some of friends down south are getting walloped with the white stuff.
 
wobblygong

wobblygong

Street Tracker
otherwise said:
"nothing is changing, you just haven't been around long enough to remember the last time it was like this".
Click to expand...

Mmmmmmm.........I don't know Kevin. I hate to think we'd pinned the hopes for our future and the future of our children and our children's children on the wisdom of a ancient, ageing sheep herder.:sheephqr:


Sal Paradise said:
One thing I have learned on this forum is that I HAVE to get to Australia some day.Your economy is solid, you can ride way out in "the bush" and it seems to stay pretty hot, all of which I like.

...he joked about the cold weather and " the empty promise of global warming". Yeah. Something is changing, but its not what we'd hoped.
Click to expand...

Yes Sal, you HAVE to come to Oz some day. If you like HOT, we got HOT!
If you like open spaces, we got plenty of that too..not too many people in those open spaces either.

I believe "Global Warming" is not the issue here....it's more about "Climate Change". Extremes of temp, extremes in weather patterns....gales, blizzards with record snowfalls, severe electrical storms on a regular basis....my point.


Oxblood said:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/climaterisks/
Click to expand...

Thx for sharing these links.
Was a bit disappointed some of the historical data was incomplete or absent.
Crucial data in this discussion on changes in climate.
Maybe I missed it.. Science-speak is not one of my strong points.
 
loxpump

loxpump

Rocker
One thing about the weather is, it has always changed and it always will change, no matter what humans do.
 
jphickory

jphickory

Banned
loxpump said:
One thing about the weather is, it has always changed and it always will change, no matter what humans do.
Click to expand...

That is exactly right. My Dad was born in Mascoutah, Illinois on May 2, 1929.
It snowed over 2" that morning. All the old timers remembered that event - not too many of them around anymore. I remember in the 1970's many scientists were saying that the earth was heading towards another ice age.
I've have since learned to pretty much ignore the "experts". Most of the current information is motivated by research grant money and social agendas.
 
bikeypikey

bikeypikey

750cc
Dunno the reason for it but 2 weeks ago it rained like hell here - proper monsoon electrical storm with the wind blowing it in the house sideways. It's happened a couple of times in the past 6 weeks. Now hotter than hell in the daytime but still cool at night. Loads of people with colds. This is the normally the cool/dry season and we anticipate daytime temps of 25 degrees C and don't expect rain between December and late March/early April. Global warming? Climate Change? Don't know, but do know something's stuffed for sure this year.

Cheers,

Pikey.
 
Bonafide

Bonafide

NBR founder
Let's see ...

In the past year or so - in my area - we've had, a drought over the summer, a flood in the fall, and yesterday it snowed 4" all the way across the South and down to Florida.

Apocalypse or Armageddon? :D
 
wobblygong

wobblygong

Street Tracker
I never thought I'd say this but today is so hot and humid, I don't think I could face going for a ride. Definitely not wearing a armoured jacket and full face helmet.
Even with light weight pants, a T or a cotton longsleeve shirt and wearing an open-face helmet, it's like riding in a sauna. It's not comfortable and saps your energy. High 30's and 96% humidity............shiiiiit!
It's wierd and ironical, but some of you guys would love to swap with us Aussies at the moment to escape the cold weather and here, I'm so looking forward to jumping on that plane in 5 weeks to fly to Canada and the US.:woot:
 
ivar

ivar

TT Racer
Here in Norway, in the south, its been the coldest winter since 87/88. While here up north, its been the warmest January since they started collecting data. (around 80 years I think...?)

This may correlate pretty good to the sun's 11- and 22 year cycles
 
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