Maleny Weather

The mild weather we have been having of late suddenly came to an end with our first taste of winter on Friday when the temperature at the Maleny Weather Station fell below average to a minimum of 2.9 degrees at 5.45am. This is the lowest June temperature since 2001 when 2.9 degrees was recorded on the 16^th of the month. Widespread frosts were reported in low lying areas and in particular Peachester, Conondale and Kenilworth. The very suddenness of the cold spell caught us almost unawares. The weather on the Range was dominated by a large slow moving high over southern Australia and a deep low in the Tasman Sea. Between the two of them cold dry air was whipped up on a frontal system from the southern ocean and extended up the east coast. This brought the humidity down to the low thirties with crystal clear blue skies and long hours of sunshine.

Six weather observers were selected as winners of the 2009 Thomas Jefferson Award. One of these is Gilbert Koch, from Nebraska, who has provided “exemplary weather observations and information to the US National Weather Service, his community, and the National Climatic Data Centre since 1 August 1969”. The Thomas Jefferson Award is the US National Weather Service’s most distinguished award for cooperative weather observers. Thomas Jefferson was one of the first people in the USA to collect daily weather information. Typically, only five awards are given annually to worthy candidates, who have demonstrated outstanding and unusual achievements.

The rainy season has just started in Tokyo, but residents in a small coastal town have reported a different phenomenon: tadpoles dropping out of the sky