Melbourne Weather

Just the other day we learned something interesting about the weather here in Melbourne. Or at least I found it interesting since I like learning about weather patterns in different places. Maybe that means I'm getting old, but I don't care. So here we go. It is not that unusual for there to be a day that starts out in the 90's F (32° C) and with in a matter of minutes, drop 20+ degrees. 

We were oot and aboot (that's out and about for all you non-Canadian speaking folks), wandering around Melbourne, trying our best to actually pick places where we could go inside since it was extremely hot and windy. We decided to go back to the Australian Center for the Moving Image since we knew they had some other free exhibits that we hadn't seen yet and that it was nice and air conditioned in there. But to our surprise when came back outside after we were done it was still quite windy but now almost chilly. 

This intrigued me. So when we got home I looked up the weather for that day, the temperature had dropped to 70°F within only 10 minutes and progressed to the 50's over the next hour. Corresponding to that temperature drop was simply a change in wind direction. While there was extreme heat, the winds were coming straight from the North. But as soon as the winds changed to be coming from the south, the temperatures plummeted. Which if you think about it geographically, the only major things straight south of Australia are the Ocean and then Antarctica. So any winds from the South will bring cool air. 

Nothing but ocean between Antarctica and Australia

I asked our host about the weather and this is not an unusual occurrence in Melbourne and along the southern coast of Australia. The rest of their Spring, Summer, and Fall will be like this. There will be some extremely hot days. Most people that live there do their best to sit inside and wait it out because they know eventually the winds will turn, and they'll get relief pretty quickly as soon as the winds turn. Pretty cool I think :)