One thing we can’t control – ‘The Weather’

08 April 2024 / Words: Jeff Rowe

I started this story by saying one thing we can’t control is the weather, then I thought some of us may also say our wife, husband, partner or children, the list could go on forever. Those domestic matters I am not going anywhere near but I will talk about the way weather can disrupt our plans.
Illawarra Chapter had an event on the events web page for members to attend a Saturday afternoon ‘End of Daylight - Saving Run’. We were going to two venues we’d been to before so had a good idea what we could expect on our arrival.
The event was well supported with members from a number of Chapters registering to attend.  Bookings were made and confirmed at the venues run notes were printed off for each car driver or passenger cars were cleaned and fuelled all ready for the event.
The Weatherman had been predicting some rain for the weekend but, as we all know, they are often wrong as much as right about times and amounts of rain that might fall. Some comments were made at the Illawarra Chapter monthly meeting on the Thursday before the run that if it rained Jeff, our run leader, would leave his car in the garage. Jeff’s car is a Black NC that has only had the windscreen wipers used a couple of times in the five years he has owned the car. That’s a story for another time.
The planned run was to start in Oak Flats, Southern Illawarra, and head down the coast to finish in Gerroa. This would involve some highway driving and some great and popular winding country roads.
Let’s get back to the weather. On this occasion the Weatherman definitely got the forecast right.  Anyone that lives on the NSW East Coast will certainly attest to that. Rain, rain and more rain together with high winds. The poor SES and all Emergency Service Agencies certainly had their work cut out for them during the Friday night.
The rain and wind could be heard throughout the night and on checking the news and weather services in the morning it was obvious to see that the conditions were not ideal for an outing in our cars regardless of its colour.

The decision was quickly made that in the interest of safety the run should be cancelled. Then came the task of contacting all those who had registered to attend of the decision to cancel. There was disappointment but also understanding and support for the reason the choice to cancel was made.
With everyone contacted the venues were contacted to cancel our bookings, they were very understanding given the conditions. The run sheets were filed away for possible use at a later date. All sorted.
Then the sun came out. Did we really need to cancel the run after all?
Seeing some posts on local social media pages soon confirmed that we made the correct decision. Between 100 and 200mm of rain had fallen across the region. There were flooded roads, washed away roads and trees down. This was across a lot of the area we were planning to travel as well as areas that members were travelling from to join us. Then the National News Services started to show what damage had been done across much of the NSW coast.
It was certainly safer to be at home and look forward to the next event where we can have the opportunity to spend time with so many of our MX-5 club friends.
So, there’s one thing we can’t control - ‘The Weather’ when the weather has a different plan to ours.