I am starting to call this Morrison Weather. This morning, as I munched away on my muesli with yoghurt and a dollop of raspberry jam, I scrolled through my trending articles. Dust storms in central NSW. Floods in Queensland. Massive hail stones in Victoria. A locust plague (possibly a record-breaker) in Kenya threatening food production for a large population.
Oh! It has to be said that it was an unusually perky morning. We had 8mm of rain last night and a puddle survived on the pavers while the grass looked damp and even rather green. Meanwhile the sun was out and the magpies were on a mission for bugs in the back yard. I couldn’t deny that a sense of betterness pervaded the air.
Then, at about 12:30pm the promised storm came – 95% chance of 8-20mm. I had hung the clothes inside and was just preparing lunch for the kids when the phone rang. My husband’s mobile number showed on caller ID. When I said hello though, it was just a sound of striding material. I assumed a pocket dial and hung up. I got a bit distracted from lunch-making by the blowing rain outside. It was so beautiful to see. I wanted to savour the colour and smell and sound of it. Ten minutes later the phone rang again. This time P was on the other end. He was terse. Hail stones the size of his fist. Our Tesla damaged – all the glass and nearly all the panels and a head-light. He was coming home.
When he got home we waited an hour and twenty minutes for our insurer to pick up the phone. Is it any wonder? Bushfires, floods, hail… they must be paying out money faster than Scotty can say “How good is extreme weather?!”.
Out of the Cave 