What happened in February

Jessica: Time to write a family newsletter. What happened in February?

Jonathan: It was hot.

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It wasn’t that hot. The daily high temperatures ranged from 20 degrees C to 38. That’s 68F to 100F, which isn’t so unusual for summer. You can see from the graph below, from the Bureau of Meteorology, that there were more cool days in the high 60s F and low 70s F than hot days near 100 F. Plus after (during?) hot days, Melbourne typically has a drastic cool change: the wind swaps directions suddenly, and the temperature drops about 20 degrees C. Or from 100F down to 68F in about 15 minutes. Melbournians love it. I think I might prefer more constant summer temperatures in the high 20s C or low 30s C (around 80 degrees F). We didn’t get too many of those days in February.

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What else happened in February?

At the beginning of the month, Tim was in Santa Clara California for work for the first time since 2019. His company has built a new building since then. Tim kept sending pictures like this:

Cool building, Tim.

Meanwhile, Jonathan and I participated in Melbourne’s Midsumma Pride March. Looking back to the temperature graph, you see that sharp spike early in the month? Yup. That was the hot weather we had for the march. A bit too hot, actually. That would be part of Jonathan’s memories of heat.

On February 13, another of those big heat spikes ended via a massive storm. The storm was particularly bad at Monash – it took down a lot of trees, blocked the public transit, and campus was closed the following day. It took me a long time to get home that day. Photos below show the damage in front of the Science building, and a view of a small part of the long line for train-replacement-buses to get out of the city after that storm. Luckily, I commute from the suburbs back into the city, so my wait wasn’t quite as bad (I wasn’t in that line). 

On February 15, when the temperature was back down in the cool-zone, we cashed in on our Christmas present: The family went to see Groundhog Day the musical. That was fun.

There were a couple other small heat spikes before the end of the month as well. My photos show that Tim and I went with a friend to check out his boat on St Kilda harbor on 25 February, which was definitely a day on the hotter side of warm.

But otherwise all my pictures of February are pictures of gorgeous summer weather.

This is my favourite time of year not to be in winter. Even when it is hot.