Stormy Weather

The storm on Sunday was the worst to hit Brisbane in 25 years, so they say, and the radio and telly were already having a screaming orgasm over the general devastation rained down upon The Gap through to Mitchelton and Ferny Grove when on Wednesday storm number two created its own little low pressure system over us for most of the night and dropped 300mm of rain around and about.

We were due to get ourselves up to the Sunshine Coast to visit Julie and Gary and ickle Jarrah in their salubrious waterfront accommodation when the Severe Weather Warnings started coming through on Thursday but that we wouldn't let the weather get in our way so we trotted on up there and had a nice afternoon with them at Underwater World.

We were in two minds as to whether to go straight home after we had finished there as the skies were looking a bit ominous but decided to stay for supper on the balcony of their holiday apartment, and munched away merrily as the clouds rolled over with fork lightning doing its thing out to sea.

Looking South we could see the skies over what we presumed was Brisbane and it looked like the place was under attack with flashes flashing over it constantly, so we thought we'd hop in the car toot sweet and get our behinds back as the dogs were outside and likely having cadenzas with the thunder.

We listened to the radio on the way back - and the local radio has been a very well run source of information - and this didn't really improve our spirits when, as we got closer, the distant lightning crackled and hissed over the transmission which even broke down completely at times, kind of like a post-apocalyptic radio transmission from the last survivors of some dreadful event. But we heard talk of hailstorms in Lutwyche and power lines down in Everton Park and floods in Bald Hills so drove down expecting if not the worst then some good entertainment and some very scared dogs, as we drove through heavy rain and the lightning continued to flash ahead of us, growing slowly closer.

Neither of which actually turned out to be the case as we missed the alleged flooding on Gympie Road which people had allegedly been aquaplaning into at 80km/h and saw no particular signs of hail or rain or wind. In fact once we were out of the rain it was an easy drive.

And everything was in one piece when we got back. Even the dogs.