Respect Mother Nature

[littleheaven]

It's been a rough week for many in New Zealand, especially those living in the lower North Island. The worst floods in recorded history have taken out bridges, washed away roads (completely isolating some towns), swept houses into rivers, flooded buildings right up to their rooflines... Thousands of newborn lambs have drowned, thousands of people are without power or phones, some have lost their entire farms and their houses, it's just awful. Crops are buried under feet of silt, just weeks before they were due to be harvested. We have an agricultural economy, and this will hit it hard.

The big wind we had in Auckland on Sunday night sent a tree through someone's roof, nearly killing them.

I don't know what's happening to the weather. Normally February is clear, very hot, the best month of summer. So far it's been cold, windy and wet. It's more like May, for goodness sake. It's pissing me off. I'm not ready for summer to end, even though the humidity made me VERY uncomfortable in December and January.

rachelcaine, when's David gonna get here? I could so use that Djinn right now :o)

In fanfic news, I am still struggling along with lala247's Bloody Valentines fic. I really want to finish it this weekend. Ghost of a Chance is with our lovely beta readers, so hopefully by the end of next week it will be ready to unleash on an unsuspecting ST board!

Comments

[whitetower.livejournal.com]

Us, too. Looks like somebody's got it in for the Antipodeans this year, huh? How about where you live? Are you in any trouble? My town's okay, since we're up on the Great Dividing Range and therefore would be coastal property if there was a tsunami. But it's decided to be 40-odd degrees every day for a week, which is totally wearing me down. Stupid Australian houses not designed for the weather. Where's an air-conditioned basement when you need one? Plus, we had a mini-tornado last week that tore the roofs off dozens of houses. Electrical storms almost every night. Floods AND fires in NSW. (Race-riots in Sydney!) It's all fun, fun!

Do you ever think that we were stupid for settling down here in the first place? I always thought NZ was the lesser of the two evils, but it sounds like you guys are getting hammered.

Re:

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

It's been unseasonally weird here, and I can happily blame you guys, since all our weather comes from Australia ;o)

This morning, one of the flagpoles on the apex of the Auckland Harbour Bridge broke in the wind. The flags came down three days ago to ease the stress, but it didn't help. The bloody thing snapped right off and ended up dangling over one of the lanes. They had to close all the Northbound lanes for an hour, in the rush hour, and caused a 3-lane backlog of traffic that went for about 15km! Luckily it was the direction that gets minimal traffic in the morning. And there was a mini-tornado just south of Auckland that ripped up a few trees. Power lines blew over in Mt Wellington and some poor bastard drove onto them, and then had to be rescued by the power company! And it's cold. It should be around 27-28 celcius, and it's struggling to reach 20!

But this is nothing compared to the snowstorms they get in the UK, so I'm still pleased we emigrated! Apparently summer is coming back next week, but this weekend is gale force winds and rain. Oh joy. At least I'll have to stay inside and write instead of playing in the garden... :o)

PS, I envy your thunderstorms. I just love them. Send one over!