Fri 23 June 2006 - Winter solstice
It was the winter solstice on Wednesday, and there’s been cold weather to match it this week.
In Australia, we claim winter starts on the 1st of June. In many other countries, they say it starts on the solstice. By my reckoning, being the shortest day, it should actually be the middle of winter.
I was pondering if one could gauge global warming via some kind of domestic measurement, such as how many days each winter one’s car is frozen over. Seems like less days this year than last, but I think last year I was living in a particularly cold part of Carnegie.
A gas bill arrived the other day. I’d been wondering how big it might be, with the central heating running in the colder months. The graph in the bill, showing average daily usage, says it all:
Because I moved, this bill doesn’t show a figure for last year. A quick review of my old gas bills indicate average daily gas use at the old house peaked at 158 MJ in August 2004.