Discussion: Street O

This Friday's event in Adelaide has been cancelled, first time that I can think of for a street O event. We mustn't speak of March in the same breath as such temperatures (though I'm glad I don't have a course setting trip to the Flinders planned this year!)

Athletics in Bendigo this Saturday has also been canceled

OK, you win, Blair...

My advice after the issues that arose last year is to have a clear policy thrashed out well beforehand and make everyone aware of it.

Just out of curiosity, where was the -31?

Ottawa in December 1989 - I picked eastern Canada's coldest December of the 20th century to travel across it.

Ah! Marvellous Me!bourne! 42 when I left work at 6:15 tonight. 32 when I arrived at the Seaholme Street-O start 10 minutes later. Still 32 at 8pm though!
I am just thinking of the Northern suburbanites who wouldn't have got the temperature change.

Bendigo Pseud-O starts next week. We rarely get sea breezes. Or cold fronts for that matter at this time of year.

Bendigo humidity isn't all that high either. What we lost in dry bulb temperature last night was matched by the increase in humidity.

Wednesday retains its status as the hottest-ever street-O - the 7 p.m. temperature was 42.0 on Wednesday and 'only' 41.7 on Thursday. I suspect that the 42.0 may be the hottest 7 p.m. temperature on record in Melbourne (on Melbourne's record hottest day in 1939 the change had gone through by 7) but this is very difficult to check as the hourly records aren't on computer before the 1980s.

I asked one of the meteorology people at Melbourne Uni, who did a postdoc at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks (something I would have given more thought to myself had it not been so remote from the orienteering world), whether he preferred -44 or +44. He went for -44 but that may be because his most recent experience of -44 was a while ago.

My Dad remembers the record hottest day in 1939 - he was 3 at the time, the youngest of 7 kids, and they were moving all their farm's belongings from Yorketown to Port Lincoln, which would have been a 3-day trip back then!

You can dress for -44 (so long as you've prepared in advance). A bit harder to dress for +44, and undressing for it can lead to other hazards. Think I'd be hiding indoors for either, but if I had to choose then my vote's for the minus as well. Have "worked" in the tropics, dry and wet, and know I start to get a little silly when things climb into the high 30s, dry or wet!