Into every life a little rain must fall....

This morning

Sydney retailer supplying our needs.

 ...but too much is falling in mine... I have been known to boast in a blasé kind of way that since I am a Londoner, I always carry an umbrella. This came in handy in San Francisco, and has proved itself essential in Sydney today. But Sydney rain is the big beefy cousin of that wimpy mist-like stuff that falls (sometimes so depressingly constantly) in London. I suspect that more rain has fallen on Sydney today than has fallen on London in the whole time I have lived there. It has all come down in one of Sydney’s massive sub-tropical deluges, leaking through ceilings, flooding roadways and pouring down storm drains. Ah, home...!

Uh-oh....

This interesting situation – you must remember that I completely missed the terrible floods earlier in the year, and haven’t seen rain like this for a very long time – prompted me to look at the Bureau of Meterology website. There I found that June (which begins very shortly) is the wettest month of the year for Sydney, with a mean rainfall of 130.7 mm. The average temperatures in June range between 9.3 and 16.9 degrees Celsius – which really not too bad, people, for mid-winter. According to Wikipedia on London's climate the average rainfall in London in June is 44.9 mm, and the average June temperatures range from 11.7 to 21.1 degrees Celcius.

But today in Sydney is not about averages. What we have here is rainfall of 15 mm since 9 am, winds at 22 kph, and temperature of 11 to 13.9 degrees. For a little local colour, I give you the Weather Warnings current for NSW:

Weather Situation
A trough lies along NSW coast with a low off the Central Coast while another
low is developing near the Far North Coast.
Strong wind warning for New South Wales waters between Smoky Cape and Port
Hacking.
Winds: South to southwesterly then tending easterly 30 knots Tuesday. Combined
sea and swell: Increasing up to 4 metres.
Strong wind warning for New South Wales waters between Port Kembla and Merimbula
Winds: Southerly up to 30 knots. Combined sea and swell: Up to 3 metres.

Wet city.

This afternoon.

The Sydney forecast suggests that it will be raining almost every day until I leave. Back in London, I see from the BBC site  that it is “raining lightly” (ha!) today, Monday, but “sunny intervals” (“sunny intervals”??) are forecast for the rest of the week with temperatures around 9 – 21.

So it seems that apart from the ferocity of the rain, there is not a great deal of difference between a Sydney winter and a London summer. The Amalfi Coast is looking better every day (26 degrees and sunny today).

But let’s not get too hung up on the rain – I soothed my dampness today with a classic Aussie lunch: a meat pie and tomato sauce.  An excellent cure for sogginess.

Comfort food.