(no subject)

I don't often post views from my place, but I thought I'd make an exception in this case. The smoke plume is from a fire burning 20km away in the national park, just on the other side of that blue ridge. The fluffy white cloud at the top is the beginning of a pyrocumulus formation, though it has since blown away.

I'm not in immediate danger. However, the forest and farmland between me and it are tinder dry. Tomorrow I will be dropping Sahaquiel at work so that I have the car and can evacuate with the dogs if it becomes necessary.

Canberra has been going through apocalypse roulette recently. We had a week of smoke-free air, which was glorious. However, last Monday a violent hail storm swept through. I only caught the fringes of it at my place--it brought some much needed rain and a tiny bit of hail (only a couple of centimetres wide). Unfortunately, it hit the centre of the city hard, with pieces the size of golf balls or cricket balls. Hundreds of cars were written off. It also smashed the glasshouses at the CSIRO, destroying years of research.

Thursday followed up with a dust storm. It wasn't as severe as in places west of here and it didn't cause any damage, mostly just leaving things looking grimy and tattered. That same day the airport was shut down when a local fire broke out nearby, burning through grassland and the local nurseries.

Most days, I'm doing okay, but the litany of disasters gets wearing after a while. I've noticed an uptick in anxiety among my friends--especially those already prone to anxiety. And most worryingly for the current situation, the temperatures for this week are expected to rise steadily to reach 41 Celsius/106 Fahrenheit.