Cyclone Bianca

Perth is generally out of the range of cyclones but apparently they do make it here every once in a while. The last time was 1978 when one did quite a bit of damage so it was big news last week when Bianca glanced off the northern coast and made her way towards Perth. But oddly enough, even though the cyclone warning made headlines, there was little or no weather information to be found. There were no cyclone supplies being snapped up at the stores, no lines at the gas stations, or any other preparations being made. Coming from Houston where tropical storms and hurricanes are taken very seriously I couldn't believe the lack of information and precautionary measures. So it was an interesting cultural lesson as well! The most official report I could find said something along the lines of "by tomorrow morning, we'll know whether the cyclone made landfall or not" when they were predicting the storm to hit overnight Saturday night. Uh, I could look out the window and tell you that! Regardless, I'm a severe weather junkie and got very excited about the possibility of a big storm.

The radar picture was impressive.

On Friday, an extremely humid heat wave arrived ahead of the storm, along with a plague of massive grasshoppers.

There were dozens in our yard alone but they were easiest to spot on the walls. Kind of freaky, especially since they showed up overnight.

Saturday evening we got some rare thunderstorms and tropical clouds, along with some increased winds. I was excited to wake up Sunday morning and look out the window, but this was the view:
Cyclone, anyone? Not in this neighborhood.

As it turns out, things stalled overnight and the storm basically fell apart. We still got some unusual weather and, much to Matt's delight, a sizable storm surge with great surfing waves. By Sunday evening the usually placid summer waters were replaced with enormous rolling waves and the beach was busy with surfers and spectators.

So we missed out on a cyclone but still got to experience some unique weather. At least it made for an interesting weekend!