Weathering the Weather

            Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of Victoria

Or something like that.  Tomorrow, 21 June, is the winter solstice here in the Southern Hemisphere, so I think a weather update is appropriate.  Melbourne’s solstice forecast calls for partly cloudy skies, temperatures from 11° to 16° C (52° to 61° F), with northerly winds averaging 30 km/h (19 MPH).   In local parks the deciduous trees have not yet dropped all their leaves, while down below the daffodils are just about ready to start blooming. 

For at least two months, as we have been descending into this extreme meteorology, native Melburnians have been solicitously asking how we are coping with their cold weather.  They usually accompany the question with a little drawing in of the shoulders and a pantomime of pulling a coat a bit tighter around themselves.  Sometimes it’s not even a pantomime—they actually do pull the coat tighter, pull down their gloves, settle their winter caps and cinch up their scarves.  Our answer is usually some variation on “so far, so good,” and Kathryn and I avoid each other’s eyes.

            I have seen no frost here yet.  For my morning runs I am still in leggings and a tee-shirt, and am sweating copiously when I get home.  Just for the sake of comparison with our weather in Melbourne so far, here’s something a friend once told me of her stint in North Dakota.  One winter evening there, she was in a hurry and rushed outside immediately after a shower, her hair still damp.  On the way to the car her head brushed up against something, which caused her hair to shatter and tinkle to the ground at her feet like a broken icicle.  That, I submit, is cold. 

What we have seen here so far is pretend cold, and the people who pile on the layers and wrap up in woolen scarves are simply playing at winter, the way children put on everything in their closet and imagine they are polar explorers.  Several times already we have grossly over-packed for weekend excursions because friends assured us that we were visiting “a cold place.”  So now, when one of us says that Such and Such is supposed to be “cold,” the other will ask, “Is that cold cold, or Aussie cold?”  There is a substantial difference.

--originally posted 6/2009