WIND AND MERCURY

Taranaki Daily News, 31 January 1934, Page 9

WIND AND MERCURY

Melbourne’s heat wave TEMPERATURE REACHES 107. RAPID CHANGES IN WEATHER. NEW ZEALANDER’S EXPERIENCES.

(By

John McDonald.)

“I might go to Melbourne,” I said to an old Hawera friend as Taranaki’s last winter was ending. Through the wind-screen-of his car we could see snow on the lower slopes of Egmont and a cold southerly was whipping clouds away from the peak. “You’ll need a Palm Beach suit then, boy,” he smiled. Three weeks, ago I remembered his remark—and scowled. This week I smiled wanly as I thought of his words, of Taranaki’s cool breezes . . . and Egmont ... and the nip of the Fitzroy breakers. It has been very hot. Torrential rain towards the end of 1933 brought floods to Victoria’s “bushcountry.” Heavy rain along the upper reaches of one of the slow rivers that cross the great flat plains of the back country here invariably means floods, for the surface of the river is just a foot or so below the average surface of the country it traverses. Consequently, for miles on either side of the Snowy River farms were inundated and crops ruined. Several settlers were drowned and dozens marooned on their roofs. The town of Orbost, 240 miles along the Princes Highway towards Sydney, was cut off by flood-waters from the same river. Melbourne itself was wet and grey and bleak. It was then I remembered that New Zealanders talk of “Sunny Australia.” I scowled. Palm Beach suit, indeed. Thick sox, heavy shoes and overcoats were in general use. I sighed for Taranaki’s warm beaches and recalled the sunburn I suffered after a picnic behind Paritutu almost a year before. . . Then, on Monday, January' 15, this week opened brightly. It was brighter on Tuesday and by Thursday it positively glittered. But, although the mercury reached its highest point on the Thursday the really bad day was Wednesday. You see, Australia is a great believer in trade rmions—and it was the annual holiday for the ice-trade in the metropolitan area. Almost in a day the front pages of evening daily newspapers switched from the menace of floods to the menace of bush fires. No, Mr. Green, there wasn’t a thing about dairy produce, but' away in the middle of the paper there was a few lines on a New Zealand murder trial. At 9 a.m. on the Monday the temperature in Melbourne City was 70 and at 3 p.m. the maximum of 94.3 was registered. At the same time on Tuesday morning the temperature was 79 and at 12.30 p.m. it was 101. Wednesday started with 78 but by 1 p.m. it was 103.5. From 83 on Thursday morning the temperature rose to its heat wave peak of 107.5. On Friday the maximum dropped 34.5 degrees and to-day (Saturday) it was only 65 at midday. As I type this I am wearing a woollen pullover! The sudden changes in Melbourne’s temperatures are puzzling to newcomers, but hardly a day passes without a sharp rise or a sudden drbp. Without delving into the reasons advanced by the meteorologists for such caprices, it seems that the mercury here is in unholy alliance with the wind and follows closely its vagaries? Tucked away on the southeastern corner of a great continent, Melbourne is” exposed to winds that come straight off the Antarctic, on the one hand, and on the other has no shelter from blasting northerlies that sweep down from Australians hot interior. Like gusts from the opened door of a furnace the northerly wind struck the city on Tuesday. Thousands of people looked in at Gaunt’s, a city jeweller, and mopped their brows as they scanned the temperature readings. As a study in contrasts, one paper featured photographs of workmen tarring a city road and a little nude girl being hosed by her mother on a front lawn at Brighton. Again, aspects of the “coolest job in Melbourne” were illustrated; workmen were shown carrying ice to customers. A man in a £3OO beaver fur coat was pictured in an ice-chamber moving blocks of ice, and a machine operator was photographed manufacturing icecream. Next day reporters became unnecessarily hot on a hunt to find the “hottest job in Melbourne.” The honours were shared by an engine-driver and the stokers in the boiler-room at the biggest hospital. Next morning the palm was taken by a story concerning a worker in the boiler-room of the Melbourne Hospital who' had to clean the inside of a huge boiler in which’ the’ fires had not been out for a year and of which the brickwork was ;still too :hot to touch. About 15 feet in from the furnace door the temperature was almost 190 degrees. Policemen on point duty, a diver in the River Yarra and a taxi-driver changing a wheel bn an unshaded stretch of road were other “hot jobs.” One photograph showed a policeman pouring water over the mat on which he stood at an intersection. Of course, with all the rest of the year to, choose from the icemen of Melbourne had to pick on a heat wave for their annual - holiday. No ice was made for sale on • Wednesday. In fact, . housewives Had a bad time for, with the bakers’ holiday on Tuesday and the bread-carters’ holiday on Wednesday, they had no fresh bread for two days. The butchers went picnicking on Wednesday and the lack of ice prevented the purchase of additional meat on Tuesday night—lt was Black Wednesday, but the Holidays Had To Be Observed.

During the heat wave thousands of people spent the greater part of the night bn the beaches lying on cool sand and bathing in tepid water. Even there, the women wore less than the men. “Is it years of wool-wearing that has made man sheep-like where fashion is concerned?” asked a. woman writer for one of the daily papers. Continuing, she indicated that the “white man’s burden during the day was 81b ljoz, but the white woman escaped with 11b 12J oz.” Her figures were reached as follows, and on one side of the story was a photograph of a man mopping his brow and on the other a girl, gadzy and cool:—Man: Coat 21b 81oz, vest 12joz, trousers 11b 6oz, shoes 11b BJoz, shirt 6Joz, collar and studs |oz, tie |oz, singlet 3joz, underpants 41oz, braces 3Joz, sox and suspenders 4oz, hat 6joz; total, 81b l.joz. Woman: Frock sjoz, slip (optional) 3}oz, brassiere loz, knickers 240 z, shoes lljoz, stockings (optional) lfoz, hat 3Joz, total lib. 12|oz. Without optional stockings and slip, 11b 7Joz.