Media

Weather in the Tropics! 

Sunday, January 2nd, 2011

At present Cairns has not sustained any major flooding episodes, unlike those poor souls who have been inundated in South West & Central Queensland some 1000's of kilometres away.

From Christmas Day onward our weather has thrown sunny days, days with sun & a little rain and the odd day with just rain, but this is to be expected as the monsoon trough has arrived signaling the beginning of our ‘Wet Season’. The rain is warm and as long as the winds are light and there isn’t a cyclone sitting directly off the coast of Cairns, then the weather is generally more than pleasant on land and at out at sea.

At this time of year with extreme humidity it's too hot to bear if it doesn’t rain! Consequently when one sees and hears of a thunderstorm starting to develop west ‘up over the mountains’ in the late afternoon, it is often a welcome relief to the day’s intense heat and humidity and we pray for some respite that the warm tropical rains may bring!

The unique and somewhat rare rainforest areas that we have on our doorstep just outside of Cairns i.e. the Daintree Rainforests and the Atherton Tablelands to name a couple only exist because of our ‘area specific’ annual amounts of rainfall. If we didn’t receive the amounts of rainfall that we do in this part of the world, perhaps you would be visiting a desert rather than the tropical rainforests! The rainforest truly comes alive with the rain, birds sing, frogs croak and the emerald rainforest trees glisten in the wet and the waterfalls start to flow! 

Sadly, I do think that a few internet weather predictors and some of our national news stations always seem to mention Cairns weather at this time of the year, showing a picture icon with clouds and lightening symbols, sometimes with the sun peeking out from the clouds; even on days when the writer is sitting (here in Cairns) looking outside the window at bright blue sunshine and bemoaning the stiflingly hot and humid conditions. Perhaps it’s easier advertise Cairns weather conditions by giving a blanket prediction in order to hedge their bets in ‘predicting conditions’?  

So whilst you might be reading headlines such as “Gillard to Boost Aid for Flood-Stricken Queensland as Thousands Evacuated” and graphic images regarding “Queensland's Flood Crisis” please remember that the state of Queensland encompasses a very large area and whilst it may be flooding in Central and South West Queensland it is not necessarily flooding in Cairns!