Wind, Rain, and Fire
What a dramatic change in weather. Yesterday was 42 degrees in parts of Perth and surrounding areas. The heat was dry and the sun was beating down hard on the concrete. Plants are estivating and taking time out in growing, trying to conserve the moisture in their little green leaves and stems. It amazes me how some plants, especially the weedy types like Fleabane also known as Argentine fleabane, asthma weed, conyza, flax-leaved fleabane, flax-leaved horseweed, hairy fleabane, hairy horseweed, horseweed, little horseweed can grow in some hostile parts of pavement, sand and concrete, under shrubs, under structures and make a 90 degree turn, have multiple heads and lots of little air born seeds. They can grow to 2 meters tall and be 1 meter in the ground. I digress, the weather has taken a massive mood swing here in Wattleup. Very windy and some rain (need to set up a weather station for local weather collecting). Its over cast and the temperature dropped to 15 degrees, light gusty winds and sprinkle sprinkle. The Southwest was struck with multiple fires from yesterday's heat wave, I haven't investigated much but they seems to be large fires that did burn down some Rural homes and bushland around the towns of Denmark and Bridge Town. Its not unusual to have fire this time of year, and it seems like the fire department was well resourced this year. Very lucky that these rains and cooler temperatures have come to dampen the fires rather another long heat wave. One of our bushlands in Joondalup was set alit in December (arson). I am very curious to see what it look like now as it was a very beautiful Jarrah and Marri forest in the middle of the suburbs, it had much life and plant diversity. Hopefully we can get in on the weeds in the next month and help natural regeneration.
The rains have also shown a very ugly side to our civilization, the pollution of our roads and water ways. Going for a short drive I noticed a lot of foam and bubbles running down the roads. I suspect its all the oil, radiator coolant, exhaust particles, rubber tire particles and more! All this runs directly into the drain and makes it way to the closest wetland, water sump, park land, creek or water way. In environmental science we call this an event a "first flush", any water meters in the river and creeks would see an increase in water quantity and also increase in the pollution parameters it is collecting. These chemicals are then ingested and absorbed by the ecology causing toxic blooms, and poisonous water, potentially killing wildlife and wetland plants.
Maybe electric cars will prevent one of the most damaging pollutants from entering a waterways in the future, maybe plant based or environmentally friendly rubber tires. I think this might need some further investigation! How much oil and pollution really comes out of a traditional car! I can hear some vehicle enthusiasts out now spinning tires on the oily road, "Wet Laps" in the vernacular. If your car is leaking oil, please consider getting it fixed to help stop more oil getting into out environment.
Thank you for reading! The page is evolving quickly and I am very excited to organise all my nature photos, make a weather station, research an environmental topic. I will be setting up my first forum discussion topic on the page. "Are electric cares better for the environment?"
