I took this picture with my mobile phone today while walking past the West Beach Primary School. The birds were squabbling noisily and at one stage were pecking and pushing each other.

I’m neither a botanist nor an ornithologist, but the birds are some type of parrot and I guess the bush is a bottlebrush.

I’ll mention too the weather has been remarkably cool for Adelaide in February over the past week.

Temperatures have been around 20 to 23 degrees for several days, which I’m quite happy about.

I don’t mind hot weather when I’m on holiday, but not while I’m working.

I thought the year was wetter than normal, but total rainfall was slightly below average after a couple of dry months to finish the year.

Highest maximum: 42.9 on January 31
Lowest maximum: 11.4 or July 12

Highest minimum: 28.7 on February 1
Lowest minimum: 1.3 on July 22

Wettest day: 29mm on February 19
Wettest month: August 92.4mm
Driest month: January 17.4mm

Not much stands out for me, but I remember the single frosty morning in July.

The plain-text Courier font has been the official style for many years now. Frankly, it looks dull and has possibly driven many web users to commercial sites that present the same data more attractively.

The bureau is now moving with the times and is about to unveil a new look and more detail with its South Australian forecasts.

The promised changes include:

• Twenty-eight locations in South Australia will get a seven-day forecast. This now includes a forecast for Glenelg. Mount Barker will now receive its own town forecast.
• District forecasts get a major upgrade and will contain far more information about rainfall, winds, fire danger and more. Instead of six combined district forecasts there will be 14 individual district forecasts. The smaller size will allow more detailed description of expected weather.
• The Adelaide metropolitan forecast will include a day-one forecast of the probability of any measurable rain and a forecast of the likely rainfall range.
• The seven-day forecasts will be presented as a combination of text and graphics.
• Seven-day forecasts will be provided for more rural locations.
• Forecasts will contain more detail about wind and rainfall, and overnight temperatures for seven days will assist in frost mitigation.
• A new frost warning service will replace the existing frost risk service for the Mid North, Murraylands, Riverland, Mount Lofty Ranges and Lower South East. The service will provide warning of moderate or severe frost conditions for the overnight period.

The extra information is welcome and it’s great to see regional centres like Mount Gamber and Port Lincoln included.

The new design is clean and eye catching. Here is the old-style online forecast:

The old-style weather bureau online forecast.

Here is the new-look forecast:

The new look online weather forecast for Adelaide.

A sample seven-day forecast for Port Lincoln:

A sample seven-day forecast for Port Lincoln.

The changes are due to take effect in “late October”.

I also hope it will be easier to use bureau-provided forecasts in third-party websites and blogs. No information has been provided about that, but it makes sense and will be widely welcomed.

Having spent nine years in the sub-alpine region of Victoria and two years in Mount Gambier, I can’t say I’ve noticed the cold, but the rainfall is hard to avoid, especially considering I like to walk to and from work.

Today was the first time this week I was able to do that, and I made it just in time this morning.

A news report said Adelaide will pass its average annual rainfall next week if showers continue as forecast.

That’s wonderful news for such a water-parched city.

For the record, Adelaide’s average annual rainfall is 545mm and the August average is 67mm.

For the period from February to April, the Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting cooler than average daytime temperatures in the southeast of the country.

After last year’s heat wave, most people will welcome that.

According to the bureau, the pattern of seasonal temperature odds across Australia is due to higher than average temperatures in both the Pacific (El Niño) and Indian Oceans, with the Pacific influence being dominant.

The chance that the average February-April maximum temperature will exceed the long-term median maximum temperature, is between 60 and 85 percent northeast of a line from Derby in northern WA to Sydney, and between 60 and 65 percent in western WA (see map). This means that for every 10 years with ocean patterns like the current, about six to eight February to April periods would be expected to be warmer than average over these areas, while about two to four would be cooler.

In contrast, there is a 60 to 70 percent chance of cooler than normal days averaged across the season over Tasmania, Victoria, southern and western SA and the southern fringes of NSW.

The affair between the First Minister of Northern Ireland’s wife, Iris Robinson, and Kirk McCambley is extraordinary. She was 59 and he was 19.

According to The Guardian: “Mrs Robinson’s transgression was the more astonishing given the controversy generated last year when she described homosexuality as an abomination on a par with paedophilia that made her nauseous. As the BBC program coyly noted, the passage in Leviticus that she quoted contains similar sentiments about adultery.”

And there was money involved too. She helped him to establish a business.

I wonder if Kirk is familiar with this scene from The Graduate:

Or if Mrs Robinson is a fan of the Simon and Garfunkel song and its lyrics: “God bless you please Mrs Robinson. Heaven holds a place for those who pray.” (with thanks to Wendy).

The other big story out of Britain and Ireland is the weather. There has been a big freeze since Christmas and many places that rarely see snow are struggling to cope.

The Herald (Ireland) describes Dublin’s “meltdown”: With road gritting supplies down to just a day’s worth, Dublin City Council Transport Manager Michael Phillips admitted another heavy snowfall could plunge the city into total chaos.

This is a brilliant satellite image:

I’m not a climate change denier, but this makes you wonder what’s going on.

The winter of 2009 was the country’?s hottest on record, with the average winter maximum temperature 1.6° above average. The July to December period was also the warmest six-month period ever recorded.

2009 was Adelaide?’s second warmest year on record behind 2007, with an average maximum temperature of 23.4 compared with the long-term average of 22.2.

Overall, it was Adelaide?’s wettest year since 2005, with a rainfall total of 518.2mm compared with the average falls of 545mm.

I haven’t seen the final figures yet, but I believe that Mount Gambier finished the year with above-average rainfall.