[permaculture-oceania] what zone..where??...

[Russ Grayson]

On 28/6/06 8:07 AM, "steve_burns at wvi.org" <steve_burns at wvi.org> wrote:

> Nice idea, however "hills of the hunter region" doesn't tell me anything
> because I've never been there and probably don't want to look up every site
> on the Internet weather and climate channels when i'm just reading through
> my email...
> 
> What terms should be used, though? temperate, mediterranean, desert,
> alpine?
> 
> what are the essential characteristics?  general climate, elevation,
> rainfall, soil type, frost/no frost, ....
> 
> So my place would be something like - temperate climate, high clay soil,
> 700 mm rainfall,  X frost days per year, etc
> :)

I wonder if some standard classification should be adopted so as to be
widely understandable? Perhaps the climatic classification typology used in
physical geography - tropical/ subtropical/ warm temperate/ cold temperate/
arctic... ?

This can be broken down into classifictaions such as tropical continental,
tropical maritime etc.

This might still not achieve the prupose the respondents discuss however,
which is about small variations in regional climate. An example in Sydney
would be that the regional climatic classification is warm temperate,
however there are smaller variations, with slightly warmer and slightly
cooler temperatures the further inland from the coast you go. Summer
temperatures here in Manly, 800 metres from the harbour waters on one side
and a kilometer or so from the sea on the other, are milder than that at
Penrith in the west on the Cumberland Plain.

Then there's the effect of altitude. Just 1ookm or a bit over an hour's
electric train journey westward you find yourself in Katoomba, up in the
Blue Mountains in what could be called a 'warm temperate montane' (montane =
mountain) climate. Here, summer is hot (the bush also burns quite well in
those months) and you get occasional snowfall in winter but winter up there
is always cold, especially when a south-westerly is coming in. For
horticultural purposes, it's more like a cool temperate regime (probably why
we get apples from Bilpin).

So, how do you want to deal with descriptions of lcoale on this listserv?
Going by suggestions, where I am could be described as: warm temperate
maritime, sandy soil.


RUSS GRAYSON
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