Sheesh, what a summer. To any tourist who visited Sydney this summer and expected some nice weather: I’m sorry. Truly and deeply sorry.

It is, of course, pouring rain right now. The 28-day weather outlook is: Rain. Every. Single. Day.

Half the state is either flooded or in danger of going under some time in the next 24 hours, including many Sydney suburbs. Parts of the state have received a third or more of their annual average rainfall in February alone. The forecast for the next 24 hours is up to 140 mm more rain in some areas. Warragamba Dam, Sydney’s main reservoir, is at capacity and expected to overflow within the next few hours. (The stupid thing about this being that a few years ago, when we thought the drought would never break, the government contracted for a huge water desalination plant in Sydney. And now they can’t turn it off because then the government would be liable for tens of millions of dollars of damages for breach of contract to the contractor. So instead we’re paying them to waste energy generating fresh water which is pumped into our water supply – thus making the dam overflow more and generating floods along the river valley.)

And despite all this rain, the weather has finally warmed up. It was wet today, but also 30°C and sauna-like humidity. It felt like Bangkok, seriously. It’s thick, heavy, sticky, steamy, tropical rain that penetrates to the skin despite not even hitting you. It’s 8:30pm now, and I’m sitting here inside my home, and sweat is literally dripping down my face because it’s so damn humid.