How Hot is it at Blaxland?

As I sit here writing this article I wonder if I'm catching cold.  I'm sure many people must be doing exactly that today, following a week of rain and low temperatures which came immediately after the two week-long heat wave we endured at the beginning of February.  I don't know how you coped with the hot weather, but I found lots of reasons to do things indoors with the air conditioner turned on.

On the day we were expecting 44°C in Penrith I logged on to the Internet to check the temperature and my wife said, "How hot is it in Blaxland?"

How would I know?  Maybe I could go outside, stand in the sun and take a guess.  Then inspiration hit—after all I was sitting at my computer wasn't I?  So I  called up Google and searched for "Blaxland Weather".  I was surprised to discover that we do have a weather station at Blaxland and that the temperatures were available on the Net.  Since then I've had  a week or so to compare temperatures  in both places.  I was also a little surprised to learn that although Blaxland may sometimes be the same as Penrith, it may also vary by several degrees.  Given the minimal difference in altitude I would have expected only about 1°C variation but when Penrith hit a high of 43°C Blaxland only reached 40.2—almost a balmy, spring day by comparison.

You can find local weather information at the Blaxland Unofficial Weather Station.  It's located at latitude 33°44'37" south, longitude 150°37'12" east, and is just 250M above sea level.  Before you go searching for your sextant or a GPS I can tell you that it's located in the area bounded by the Rusden Road and Old Bathurst Road ridges on two sides, and Railway Parade on the third.  The location is important because the operator (more about him in a minute) will not guarantee the temperature for anywhere in Blaxland other than at his home, which is sheltered by those ridges.

The weather station was set up and maintained by a guy called John whose last name I'll omit unless he gives me permission to post it here.  He is the former owner of a Blaxland electronics shop and almost certainly sold me my first computer, away back in the days before Windows—and even before hard drives. John regards his Blaxland weather station as a hobby and said that he received the necessary training from Alan Williams who controls the official weather station at Turramurra.

You won't find any weather forecasts or predictions on the web site, but you will get the current conditions which include temperature, wind speed, wind chill, barometer readings, dew point, humidity and rainfall.

Some of the information, eg, the temperature, is updated every five minutes.  Other things, like rainfall and maximum wind gusts, less frequently.

So if you live at Blaxland (or even if you're attending a U3A class at the Blaxland Outreach Centre, dont forget to visit John's page and see whether you need to take a jacket when you go out.