Freezing in Freo

I’m currently attending a conference in Fremantle. This is a port area on the coast of Western Australia, and since WA is known for its warm summers and deserts I came prepared for mild winter conditions (Fremantle is, after all, another 5° closer to the equator than Melbourne). I have never heard anyone talk about Western Australian snowfields.

I am curious, then, as to why it was only 0.6°C this morning, so that many of us at the conference sat shivering in classrooms designed for balmy sunny days (in fact it was a glorious sunny day … but the balminess was missing, to be replaced by a feeling of barminess because we’d all anticipated so incorrectly). It’s forecast to be even cooler first thing tomorrow: a 0°C frost.

No one will ever believe that I got frostbitten fingers in Fremantle!