Travellers to Tasmania come with quite the misnomer: that it rains all the time.
In the western mountainous and unpopulated areas it does often rain and snow: but no, overall Tasmania, including greater Hobart region is in drought, and is continually dry.

Visitors to the State will not take this at face value, as they see rain clouds over Mt Wellington and call me a liar. Read on for why I do not sell them porky pies. Later I give the geological and atmospheric reasons, but for now, here is my own knowledge collected over a lifetime, bar 8 years spent in Sydney.

Just 30km from Mt Wellington we live on tank water. We have no green grass. We have not seen rain of a ground wetting calibre for four months up to 3km 'as the crow flies', from the bottom of the mountain overlooking Hobart. Yes, a couple of spots of rain were felt during the lightning storm yesterday, but it was more like a bird had peed on me than anything. The rains we do have are sparse and spotty and often do not last long enough to soak into the soil.

The only reason why our dam levels are so high is due to the fact it is situated in the foothills of Mt Wellington, and is filled with the spring water of the rivulet from rains in the western mountainous region which is not populated.

What Tasmania should instead be well known for is the continual storm force winds. We cannot have a non extreme day- not mild, and not wind free. It is either freezing cold and windy, or searing hot and windy. There is no middle ground here. And the Mosquitos are adapted to the wind! Wind normally keeps Mosquitos away. Not in Tas. As soon as the sun as Re reaches the edge of a mountain in its endless battle against Apophis in the Underworld of night, the suckers appear. Then there are the flying huntsman spiders, blown from tree tops during the wind.

It is very ridiculous, this wind bollocks. You get one calm day in 20 here. Alas, being as close to the great southern oscillation as we are, nothing else can be expected really.

So, today you have learned: the greater eastern, south eastern and north eastern areas of Tasmania are either a cold windy wasteland or a scorching hot wasteland. Say hello to pigmentation even with SPF 30, Summer or Winter.
And, Tasmania's populated areas receive little to no rain mostly equaling Western NSW.

Geological and atmospheric explanation:
The wind almost always comes at Hobart from the south west, and all warm air coming from western Australia cools across the Bite, becoming cool marine air. cooler air sinks towards the ocean, becoming 'wetter'. This is akin to a warm glass of water able to dissolve salt or sugar in large quantities. Upon cooling the air is unable to hold the same amount of moisture (in the analogy, salt), thus the air becomes very 'heavy' and needs to expel this extra weight (in the analogy, the cold water cannot hold the salt in solution, thus the salt falls to the bottom of the glass). As this cool air hits the mountainous western coast, it is forced higher as it expels the water onto the western edge of the mountains, until there is little moisture left in the air. The higher the air is pushed, the more moisture is able to be dissolved in the air, and by the time the air has travelled over the mountains, the air is now dry with little to no moisture left for the eastern side of the mountains, when the air lowers once more after crossing the mountains. This is called a Chinook/Snow Eater, and can be witnessed as the causes of deserts on all the continents with great mountainous regions running down the coast air hits after crossing an ocean: the Andes cause a desert, the Himalayas cause the Gobi, Aus has the Simpson etc., Africa has theist famous of deserts, north America has the Californian deserts. Etc., etc. I know I haven't named specifics. This is all written from my memory of the atmospheric geology units I completed, but names aren't my strong point.

Alas, anytime some idiot from NSW tries to tell me that we don't have drought in Tasmania I am going to smack them one, with my abundant university knowledge of the subject.

By the way, the air then leaves Tas, takes in moisture, passes NZ, does the same dumping and chinooking, then comes back from the north east to hit Sydney's coast and the Blue Mountains, as moisture-dense air again, If you know a surfer, get them to explain how to read a weather map, so you can follow me.

Anyway, I hope I've cleared up the English (rainy State) equivalency misnomer. Geologically and weather-wise, we are very different than England.

 

 

Labels: always rains, chinook, deserts, gale force, Hobart drought, huntsman spiders, Mosquitos, snow eater, storm force, Tasmania, tasmanian misnomer, windy

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posted by Da at 10:53:00 PM