Snow is back!
 

Snow is back in Paris for the second time this winter. It's very rare.
To celebrate this rare event, here is a video of a friend snowboarding in Paris during the first snow fall (2 weeks ago):

http://urtheworld.com/?video=1793&s=.../1793/0/SEARCH

Enjoy it!

Nice video! I've never been to Paris, so... We had snow in Phoenix once (not that much). That was strange.

This post needs a higher ratio of replies to posts, so:

We had six inches plus (15 cm to you) in London. It was beautiful, but it brought the city to a halt. No bus service for the first time ever. I've never seen so many adults having snowball fights! Then, when they got wet and cold, they came into the pub next door to my flat. I've never seen so many happy drunks!

We're expecting more snow...

Time to invest in alcohol! We're gonna save this economy some how!

I like the snow skiing

Snow, what's that?

I know it's summer here in South Australia but the temperature reached 46ºC (115ºF) in Adelaide last week.

We could do with a few buckets of snow, or ice cream, see http://flickr.com/photos/patronus/1117057397/

For the record, I absolutely despise you :mad::mad::mad:.

...okay, maybe not so much. I just am not a fan of the snow. I'd love to be somewhere hot right now. Maybe I'll vacation in Australia and New Zealand next year... For all the coolness of the video posted above, my personal philosophy is that snow should stay on the mountains where I can visit it (and occasionally snowboard on it). But I can also leave it whenever I feel like it! :D.

Also, a question I've always meant to ask, is it cold during the "Summer" in Australia?

I find it a lot easier to get warm when it is very cold rather than cool when it is very hot.
It has been a very hot summer here so far and the drought just keeps rolling on.
Most days here in Sydney ( I live about 1km from the ocean ) it is about 25ºC which is a good temp although I am sure the average temp in January has been a lot hotter.
The daily max. in July is 16ºC.
See here http://www.sydney.com.au/weather.htm
The further inland you go the hotter the summers and the colder the winter.

Stewie ( reaching for another cooling ale )

Want to trade some of that snow for ice?

Depends where you are. Oz is a big (read HUGE) place, as big as the continental USA but lightly populated. It can be freezing in Tassie in your "Summer" at the same time as it's hot and tropical up north.

Our winter is certainly the best time to visit, travelling is much more comfortable. You can snow ski in the south east, snorkel the tropical waters of the north or west, or trek across deserts in the centre. Take your pick, but give it plenty of time, you'll have to learn to drive on the left (except on outback tracks where you drive on the smoothest bit, which is sometimes not even on the track).

In our summer, it's hot and dry down south, cyclones and floods up north (The Wet) and the outback is a dangerously hot and deserted place.

But we love it all. Grab a copy of your writer Bill Bryson's book "Down Under" for a no-holds-barred review of the place we call Home. See http://www.booksattransworld.co.uk/b...UnderHome.html.

All I want to know is if I really can drive a 4x4 like a maniac through miles of open desert. Because if that's true, I'm so there :). I have to admit, I find that area intriguing on many levels, it's on my short list of places I wouldn't mind moving (along with England, Japan, Hawaii and anywhere in the S. Pacific.)

I read his book. If I recall correctly, he said Australia has 7 of the 10 most poisonous animals in the world. :eek:

I can't say I've been through much Australian desert apart from the Little Desert area near Mildura and Lake Mungo in NSW. I don't know that either of those regions is true desert.

Basic rule is to let someone know where you're going and when you expect to get out the other side. That way if you don't make it they can possibly find you before you expire. Apart from that take plenty of water and reserve fuel. GPS is probably a good thing too.

So, out of vague curiosity. Am I telling people a few hours or a few days?

Oh great !
The weather bureau has just forecast three days in NSW of 47ºC which means probably 40+ where I am.
You sure you guys can't spare some snow for us ?

Zallister, only if you are going into some of the remoter places like national parks or off road where there are no roads which means days not hours.
We did a big trip about fifteen years ago up to Kakadu national park ( spectacular )which took three months there and back plus a lot of touring around on the way and even though we were well off road on occasions we never told anybody where we were going.

And 80% of the worlds venomous snakes !

Stewie

Outback Travel
 

In the outback (1/3 of the country), travel takes DAYS or WEEKS, not hours. There are very few bitumen roads, they are mostly unmaintained tracks of rock, sand or gravel, with almost no facilities (fuel, water, food), average speed 25-50 km/h over hundreds of kms. And they are lonely roads too, at the busiest time of year you might see a handful of other travellers each day. We've been up to 5 days without seeing a single vehicle or person, you think you are alone in the universe.

Every year people perish or put them selves at real risk when travelling in remote areas though lack of preparation, regrettably many are overseas tourists. If anyone is contemplating outback travel, do plenty of research first.

It can be a wonderful experience but it's also a very harsh and unforgiving environment. Distances are vast and help can be days away. Emergency recovery tools and communications equipment (HF radio/EPIRB) are essential. If you're lucky you can do it without them, but read paragraph 2.

LOL, for a second I read "Lake Mungo in NSFW"



I need to get out more.

That's insane. This summer's been pretty extreme. I have to agree that I'd prefer to be cold and rug up. But I guess my idea of cold doesn't usually include snow. We usually only get down to about 4ºC overnight in the middle of winter. If I lived somewhere where you see sub-zero temperatures maybe I'd learn to appreciate the mid-forties.

Tomorrow's forecast for Renmark, a large town in the east of South Australia, is 48ºC (118.4ºF).

At school I learned about Absolute Zero, so cold that molecules stop moving completely.

Presumably there is an Absolute [insert large number], so hot that molecules achieve escape velocity. We feel like we are approaching that.

In my perfect world it is 85 F all day (not sure what that is in centigrade, about 30?, sorry...), and 60 (or 15?) every night. Maybe get up to 90 during the day for some variety, but that's it... I'm pretty boring like that :D.

Yeah, for me 25ºC during the day ( Board shorts and a tee shirt ) down to 15ºC at night.

And if you come to Australia Zalister , you just have to try this.
http://www.forwardon.com/view.php?e=...5fcca2a5&p=457

Stewie

We were up in Cairns a few years ago at the end of September and it was about 28ºC every day then down to about 18ºC overnight and that was just perfect. Warm enough during the day to do some bush walking through some rain forest or go off for some snorkeling then cool enough overnight to sleep. Shorts and t-shirt all week (then we flew back to 11ºC in Melbourne).

If anybody needs cooling off or wants some snow, you could come here. We have just below 0°F -20°C and we got about a foot 30cm of powder snow in the last 48 hours so now we have about 2 feet of snow. Any takers?

I'll take ten kilos please shipped by email to 2096 NSW, Australia.
Let me know how much ;-)

Stewie

My mail program didn't accept that as an address. Where should the dots and @ be ? :D

Unfortunately our heat wave has turned deadly serious.

Up to 40 people have died today as gale force winds and temperatures up to 48ºC caused major bushfires across Southern Australia, and hundreds of homes may have been destroyed.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/bushfires/

Regrettably I underestimated the severity of the Australian bushfires, they are now the worst in Australia's history and fires are still raging.

Currently the death toll is 84 confirmed and many more are still unaccounted for.

At least 700 homes have been destroyed. Many small towns have been wiped out.

We are just stunned. Please pause and spare a thought for those affected by this tragedy.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...08/2485648.htm

In the UK, we're having the heaviest snowfall for 30 years. Is it my imagination, or is extreme weather becoming much more common?

Hard to say if it's a trend, but this year has been interesting, that's for sure...

@dandj -- Wow, that's terrible! Is there any sort of relief fund being put together? It kind of reminds me of the blazes we had this last summer in California... The West Coast of the US always seems to catch on fire during the summer.

Anyway, hopefully things get better over there. Tell us if a fund or something is set up so that we can be of assistance.

EDIT: Don't I feel dumb... the article that was linked has a link to a relief fund for anyone who wants to donate

Another EDIT: Okay, the article only links another article that talks about the relief fund, but has no links to it. Does anyone know how to actually contribute to the fund?

Donations can be made to the Victorian Bushfire Relief Fund through the National Australia Bank, and other relief agencies. See these links.

http://www.nab.com.au/wps/wcm/connect/nab/nab/home/About_Us/8/5/14/NAB+establishes+$1+Million+bushfire+relief+fund

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sto...8-2862,00.html

The death toll now stands at 108 but thousands of people are deeply affected by this catastrophe, which is not over yet.

Thank you for your concern and support.

Yes... if you add vodka around the ice ;-)

I just wanted to use this thread to tell everyone affected by the fires in Australia that they have my support.

Australian is a nice country, with nice people. I loved the time when I was living there.