Father and son bond over the drama of Brisbane’s seasonal sideshow.
At storm central in my study at
home in Brisbane’s inner north
there’s excitement and trepidation as
another summer tempest approaches.
My son and second-in-command,
amateur meteorologist Hamish Brown,
aged eight, is monitoring the Bureau
of Meteorology website with me. It’s a geeky bonding experience for boys
and men, like train-spotting, fishing or watching cricket. Sitting side by
side we track colourful, amoeba-like shapes of satellite imagery across
the computer screen, an indication
we are in for a hammering.
After a hiatus of a couple of
decades southeast Queensland’s
terrible beauties are being reborn.
Rarely are we battered by cyclones
that monster the tropics but we do a
nice line in subtropical thunderstorms.
On this afternoon a new storm cell
has formed and is tracking northeast.“Oh no, it’s going to be a direct hit,”
Hamish says with some authority.“I’ll just check the loops.”
(For the
uninitiated, this shows the storm’s
movement.)
“Let’s go outside and see what
we can see,” I suggest. It’s
important to back up online
research with some prac work.
Outside, looking south, beyond the
railway line at the end of our street,
behind the city’s towers of steel and
glass, clouds billow like dark liquid
spilt across the sky. Westward, a
vanguard of cumulonimbus obscuresthe sun, veins of incandescent
lightning streaking the thunderhead.
It’s a magnificent display of nature’s
awesome power.
As another jagged fork of
electricity slashes the sky, Hamish
prostrates himself on the front lawn.“If you lie flat on the ground the
lightning can’t get you,” he says. I
begin ranting, like King Lear out on
the heath: “Get up, get up for Christ’s sake! We need to go inside.” But for
a moment we are frozen, together,
mouths agape, watching the sky erupt.
A storm like this is bittersweet;
welcome because it takes the edge
off a steaming day, but also dreaded
because of the havoc it wreaks. We
have been lucky so far but suburbs
just beyond ours have been ravaged,
homes destroyed, roofs torn off.
But after the oppressive heat of
the mid‑afternoon doldrums, this
particular storm will, we hope,
provide a refreshing respite.
These colourful Rorschach blots
on the bureau’s satellite imagery
usually form beyond the Darling
Downs. If the clouds have a greenish
tinge hail is likely, but mostly they
unload the hard stuff before hitting
the leafy environs of the city’s
weatherboard jungle. On this
afternoon the looming monster is
without its threatening verdant hue
and is basic black. Lightning finds
landfall nearby and we retreat to the
safety of the house. The heavensopen and drenching rain pounds the
tin roof while thunder rumbles. We
take our seats back in my study to
watch the colourful, shape-shifting
beast throb across the screen.
The drama is intense but
short‑lived and after 20 minutes of
lashing wind and pelting rain the
storm subsides, the world is wet and
refreshed. Outside the study window
the frangipani in next door’s yard
drips and exudes exquisite perfume.
My love of extreme weather can
be traced to a childhood lived in Hong
Kong. When typhoons blustered in
from the South China Sea, school
closed until the danger had passed– always a blessing. As a teenager
living on the Gold Coast I took up
surfing and fishing, pursuits that
hone weather-watching skills.
Nowadays I am addicted to the
Bureau of Meteorology website and
The Weather Channel and the sins
of the father appear to have been
passed on. The storm season may
be coming to an end but Wee
Hamish remains attuned to
barometric pressure. The other
night, just on bedtime, he threw
back the sheets and sniffed the air.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I think there’s a storm coming,”
he said. “
Can I just check the
Bureau of Meteorology website one
more time before I go to sleep?”
I smiled, fighting back the urge
to say: “That’s my boy.”
The Weekend Australian Magazine / March 28-29 2009
