Melbourne is commonly known as being a city of four seasons in a day and it’s so true.  The weather here is pretty unpredictable, one minute it can be cloudy and rainy and the next the sun will be out. Today for example started out as a beautiful day with blue skies and sunny weather but during the course of the day it turned into a cloudy, dark and rainy day. The city still looks pretty good though with the dramatic dark skies in the photo above that I took when I came home from work tonight.

The air here is very crisp though and not humid like many other cities. The unpredictable weather Melbourne is created by its unique location, wedged between southerly Arctic influences and the northerly dry and hot desert winds. Melbourne is on roughly the same latitude as Athens and compared to European cities the climate in  Melbourne is mild, especially during winter.

What I do like about Melbourne  is that even though the climate is mild it still has four distinctive seasons, just like Sweden. Clear skies and fresh green leaves during spring,  dry and hot summers,  colourful leaves in autumn and even though Melbourne winter doesn’t’ offer any snow (unless you go to the mountains) it has cool crisp and sometimes grey and rainy days.

I’m over the rain! I was hoping Sweden could show me its best side before I leave and treat me with some warm and sunny summer weather. But no, all it does is rain. Every single day! The picture below has been circling around Facebook  lately and has made both one and two Swedes laugh I think so I thought I would share it with you too.

Min bror skickade den här till mig igår och jag tycket den var så klockren med tanke på det riktigt dåliga junivädret vi har så jag måste bara dela den med er.

The sun is shining. The sky is blue. Can one hope that spring is here?

Both Simon and I have a bit of a geeky interest in weather  and too boost the interest we regularly visit weather sites and it was then I found that the Australian Bureau of Meteorology publish an annual climate summary. Why doesn’t Sweden do that by the way? It would have been interesting to read, maybe not as dramatic as the Australian one with cyclones, heat-waves and brushfires but still. In Sweden you have to pay to get hold of historic weather statistics, in Australia you can find it all on the Bureau of Meteorology’s webpage. I read the whole report for 2011 ( it’s not that long only 17 pages) and below you can find some highlights about the rather cool and wet year. If you wish to read the whole thing too, you can find the report on www.bom.gov.au

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The times for the sunrise and sunset look a bit strange but it’s because my iPhone still is set on Swedish time since I only can use it where there is wifi.

It’s the first day on the new year and we have a really hot day here in Adelaide with temperatures around 40 degrees. I’m loving the warm summer weather but I must admit that it’s a tiny bit too hot today. I look forward to when the sun sets tonight so we can go and enjoy the beach and go for a swim.

In the end of last week it was very windy and rainy weather causing lots of drama here in Gothenburg. Now another storm is heading our way with strong winds and up to 20 mm of rain expected and SMHI (Sweden’s Meteorological and Hydrological Institute) has issued a Class 3 warning (the highest there is) particular for the area around Ätran (blue line in pic above) where the water levels are extremely high and there is a high risk of flooding.

Why am I telling you this you might ask yourself. It’s because when I look back in a couple of months time I want to remember how crappy the weather was just before we left for Australia. The Adelaide forecast for next week is looking a lot better than the Swedish one above.

Apparently we have a very windy weekend ahead of us when the storm Berit is on its way to Sweden. Sweden’s Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) has issued a warning for the whole country. There will be very strong winds but also a risk of the storm turning into hurricane strength (at least up in the mountains int he orange area on the map above).

The eye of the storm is set to hit northern Sweden from the Atlantic on Saturday, but most of Sweden will see harsh winds over the weekend and will be likely to be hit by some rain or snow. Lovely, sounds like an indoor weekend to me.

It was a cold morning in Göteborg this morning so I couldn’t help but have a look at the weather down under right now. Really looking forward to some warm weather and sun soon. Only 5 weeks to go by the way.