We had some days of really hot weather last week, but today is quite cold. During last week, the temperature was horribly hot – over 40C (about 104F) with strong and hot northerly winds. These fanned the bushfires and wrought havoc.

Yesterday, a cold front moved in across Victoria and lowered the temperature considerably. Today it was only 12C (or 53F) and it felt like winter. We have had the heater on all day. Today, we were minding our grand daughters and at one time, I looked in on them in our back room where they were watching TV. There they were all cuddled up in the lounge chairs covered with quilts and looking like two little old grannies.

We had a little rain today (about 9mm) but it won’t be enough to put out the fires. However, it was just enough to top up our water tanks that we use for garden water. They were getting down to about half full.

There has been no sun today and the air is clouded with a thick smoke haze from the fires in Tasmania to our south. I took this photo at 8 pm tonight and if you didn’t know that it was January, you could easily mistake today for a cold wintery foggy day.

By Thursday and Friday, the temperature is forecast to again be over 35C (about 98F). What a roller coaster of temperatures we are having!