Back in the `70s, when the ABC used to give us lots of storms and rain depressions and monsoonal troughs and all that stuff, I was all over it. I knew which way winds blew around Highs and Lows, and what dotted lines meant. I grew up in a house which loved The Weather.
My father, who was born in 1931, was a child of the Riverina, and very much the product of the country parish of my grandfather, Burrumbuttock (home of the Koschitzkes). The Weather mattered.
He then became a pastor himself. He had parishes at Chinchilla, Wangaratta and Shepparton. (Later, Oakey and Eudunda)
If you’re going to present the Love of Christ to people in the bush, you need to have a strong opener. “Did you get much rain last night?”
Or, in Queensland, “That monsoonal trough looks interesting.”
Or, in Wang, “Those cold fronts just keep ducking south.”
My Dad was never into sales, and The Weather was never a sales pitch. He knew the Love of Christ. And he knew The Weather. He’d spent a lifetime observing it, studying it. He was a Weather Nerd before Arthur Fonzarelli introduced us to Nerdishness.
Dad also loved newspapers and he always turned to the The Weather Page to study the The Weather Map. The Synoptic Chart. This simple map with isobars on it was as holy as the books of the Bible – except for the Gospels and Galatians maybe. Oh, and Timothy and Corinthians. And a few others, like Acts. But it was so important.
For years The Synoptic Chart was a little black and white map with isobars (have a look on Trove).
Dad would listen to The Weather on ABC radio, and study The Synoptic Chart in the newspaper. He’d stand in the front yard looking at the heavens. Parishioners driving past probably thought he was offering a quiet prayer. But he was actually trying to make sense of the wispy cirrus in the north and he’d come in to the kitchen and say things like, “There’s a lot of moisture in the upper atmosphere.”
We’d nod.
So, my three brothers and I were always going to be Weather Nerds too. And we are. Possibly because we are cricketers and golfers to the core.
Apart from having the ability to carve a driver out of bounds on the eighteenth at Oakey (or anywhere really), we Harms Boys can draw a map of Australia, reasonably accurately.
Why?
After collecting the morning information, Dad sought from the newspaper, the ABC and the sky, he would wait for the 7 o’clock evening news bulletin. He just had to see the ABC Weather Map at the end of the ABC News. We never saw whether the Sale of the Century champion took the prizes, or was coming back the next night, because Dad, if he were home, would storm into the lounge-room at 7.25 and change the channel. (We only had two – the ABC and Channel 10 Toowoomba). He would then take in The Synoptic Chart. He wouldn’t necessarily listen to the analysis of the ABC weather person (with the pointer) – he was confident in his own judgement.
During the 1970s, Dad’s Oakey parish on the Darling Downs included three congregations: Oakey, Aubigny and Norwin. Three active congregations meant a lot of meetings. We were forever having early dinner so Dad could get out to Norwin Bible Study, or parish finance Council, or Aubigny Youth.
And he would have to leave home well before the ABC News finished.
So, we boys had a vital service to provide. We had to watch the Weather at 7.25 and draw The Synoptic Chart. Talk about pressure. This document needed to be sitting on the kitchen table for when he walked in late that night (he could talk and he was always last to leave). He would then pour himself a glass of port, and place the Bible and The Synoptic Chart in front of him, and read both.
Recently I was reminded of The Synoptic Chart, Harms 1970s style.
So here is tonight’s – Tuesday, December 26, 2023. This Australia is a bit sloppy. Dad would be saying, “There’s a lot of moisture in this system.”
Read more from John Harms HERE.
To return to our Footy Almanac home page click HERE.
Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.
Do you enjoy the Almanac concept?
And want to ensure it continues in its current form, and better? To help things keep ticking over please consider making your own contribution.
Become an Almanac (annual) member – CLICK HERE.
JTH is a writer, publisher, speaker, historian. He is founder and contributing editor of The Footy Almanac and footyalmanac.com.au. He has written columns and features for numerous publications. His books include Confessions of a Thirteenth Man, Memoirs of a Mug Punter, Loose Men Everywhere, Play On, The Pearl: Steve Renouf’s Story and Life As I Know It (with Michelle Payne).
He can be contacted [email protected]
He is married to Susan. They have three school-age kids – Theo, Anna, Evie.
He might not be the worst putter in the world but he’s in the worst four.
His ambition was to lunch for Australia but it clashed with his other ambition – to shoot his age.
Talking to my 92yo dad in Mt Barker SA for Christmas. He’s also a cricketer and golfer to the core (second in the club comp last week off a 26 handicap at his age – family grudge matches are a tough school). We compared notes on Adelaide 16 degrees and Perth 36 degrees for Christmas Day. Perth has had its hottest ever start to summer while the rest of Australia drowns and shivers.
Dad mused “we always used to get Perth weather – two days later. Dunno what’s going on now.”
Discuss. The Almanac is knee deep in amateur and professional meteorologists and hydrologists.
I grew up with the ABC weather (Queensland) too. The musical intro to the ABC news (radio and/or tv) were Dad’s songs! Silence prevailed throughout the bulletin. Being a farmer, the weather forecast was everything. Possibly the fruit and veg market report at midday vied for equal importance.
Later on I did Geography I at uni – twice, in fact! Couldn’t get enough of climatology.
Not enough isobars these days IMHO.
And what happened to the Southern Oscillation Index?
Crikey JTH this brings back memories! I loved those charts. Seems to me that forecasters have less of an idea than they used to. Too much technology and not enough sky gazing?
As a farmer’s son I am seriously across all that JTH.
The weather was everything. I even remember dad’s emphatic exhortations of “you study hard at school now and get good marks then you’ll find a reliable well paying indoor job where you won’t have to worry about the weather.”
And there was one dark mysterious looking instrument which hung over dad’s desk (wherein lived lollies outside Lent) which we were never to touch under any circumstances. Unfortunately I did so just once as a young lad whereupon I very quickly learnt about the existential differences between a clock and a barometer.
RDL
RDL, we had a barometer on the kitchen wall. Dad tapped it almost every time he went past.
PB, we are blessed to have E Regnans and BD Dutschke – professionals. And myriad others.
Looking very stormy in the south-west here early afternoon. 37 degrees.
Last evening I played 6 holes at Royal Oakey. Superb summer evening. No storm. Grass growing as you look at it though.
My dad always told me to look at Adelaide’s weather. “Because tomorrow, we will get today’s Adelaide weather”.
It did hold true for much of the time. Not as often these days.
Thanks for sharing so genuinely JTH.
I sense a strong South Australian connection to this theme ,not withstanding the Oakey link.
My Dad’s mob hails from SA (Basket Range, Tanunda and Jamestown connections etc) the legacy of banking and teaching careers and I inherited the daily diaries of my great grandfather William b1870 so if anyone would like to know the cloud formation or barometric pressure or temperature at Glenelg between 1943 and 1960 … I can probably help. The Goyder line was always a good family discussion point. Cousins still farming up near Balac’ ….
Very good, JTH.
That surface pressure map you sketched on 26 December 2023 is similar any drawn for early December 2023 and again today 2 January 2024.
With a high pressure system sitting just south of Perth, bringing easterly winds from the interior.
Result: not a drop of rain in Perth for December 2023 after 5.2 mm for all of November. Heatwave conditions. Bushfires.
Records falling like batshit. Hot across the north, west. Wet across the east.
And down here in Melbourne- we look like getting to at least 23 consecutive days without reaching 30 degrees (19 up to yesterday), which would be the longest such run in summer since 2001 (there was a 20-day run last summer and a 22-day run in 2010/11). The record is 35 days from 10 Dec 1995 to 13 January 1996. At the same time – December 2023 was the first December in Melbourne to have no night cooler than 12 degrees. Take care out there.
The current black& white synoptic chart is always available here: http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/charts/synoptic_bw.shtml
==
Hottest temperature measured in Australia in 2023 occurred on the last day of the year, 31 December.
49.5 oC at Roebourne – between Karratha and Port Headland.
Beating 49.3 at Marble Bar on 30 December and 49.3 at Onslow Airport on 14 January – all in the Pilbara.
another great read, JTH.
growing up on a farm near Kingaroy, Qld, in a Lutheran family, in the late 70’s, much here I could relate to:
my father needing silence at 7:25pm for the FORECAST was part of the nightly routine … yes, I assume “Sale of the Century” was on the other channel 10-4-5A!!
My father may have ‘knocked off’ work slightly earlier for a church meeting, or choir practice, however most nights were pretty much the same.
I think much of this rubs off … I am listening to the cricket via the ABC listen app as we speak, and as much as I am enjoying hearing Andrew Moore chat with Tracey Bevan and Glenn McGrath during the lunch break, I am looking forward to the ‘latest from the ABC news room’
As Alan Peter Charles Hansen use to say – the ‘real news’!