Australians talk about `Melbourne weather` as they complain about the unpredictability of the weather. Melbourne is notorious for having `four seasons in one day` with soaring 40 plus temperatures dropping down to around 20 degrees within one hour, without any visible change. Famous are weather changes during Christmas day and Boxing day, when traditionally a test cricket match is played in Melbourne. On several occasions Christmas day reached the high thirties while people were shivering during cricket enduring hail storms and temperatures reaching only the mid teens.

In the North: the big wet, cyclones

Summer is the wet season in Northern Australia with water bucketing down. The wet causes regular flooding, making human travelling often impossible. But not for Crocodiles! The flooding provides the opportunity for Salt water crocodiles to leave the riverbanks and swim up to hundreds of km inland. After the big wet, park rangers often set out traps or bait far inland to find out if Salties have infested the area. The wet is sometimes accompanied by devastating cyclones. The Australian wind record goes to Mardie in Western Australia, when winds gusted to 259 km/h (162 mph) during Cyclone "Trixie" on 19 February 1975. Similar winds were probably recorded in Darwin (NT) during Cyclone Tracy on 25 december 1974, but we will never know exactly how strong they were because the instrument measuring wind speed broke down after recording a maximum gust of 217 km/h (136 mph). The Darwin Museum shows intriguing pictures and videos of the cyclone that flattened large parts of the city killing 71 people and leaving 41000 homeless.