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Posted by Kim Dunk on Tuesday, 5 December 19100, at 11:16 a.m.
Hello all,
We are a group of year 4 students at Happy Valley State School which is in the city of Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia.
Our school is a medium sized one with approximately 320 students, 13 classrooms and 2 Preschool classes. We have 27 students in our class.
Our city is situated in a semi arid region of North West Queensland, on the fringe of the Selwyn Ranges and on the banks of the Leichhardt River, at 139.29E long and 20.43S lat. We experience extreme weather changes over a year. Our summers are very hot (the average temperature is about 38 degrees Celsius) and our winters are very cold (especially at night when it can get to minus 2 degrees). Some of you may not think that this is very cold but it is when you have no heating!! and lots of drafty louvre windows. We have two seasons, a wet season in the warmer months and a dry season during the cooler months. We rarely see even a cloud at this time. The rivers and streams become dry creek beds with occasional water holes. After about 8 months of "the dry " the first signs of a "wet" begin to appear. A "wet" is not a foregone conclusion in this area as it is so far inland (approx 400 km from the Gulf of Carpentaria). When the rain first appears we go outside and watch the rain fall. We also spend a bit of time river watching, as the Leichhardt is dry for most of the year and the water level can go up and down over the causeway next to our school by metres in a few hours. This makes it very hard for many children to get home from school even by car.
Our city is built around the Mount Isa Mine site in the middle of town. Three huge stacks dominate the sky line and the weather is often predicted by watching the smoke from the stacks. Mount Isa is 900 km west of the nearest metropolitan area and was founded in 1923, when John Campbell Miles stumbled on rich silver-lead deposits near a dry creekbed on the edge of the Cloncurry field.
We are looking forward to sending you information about the weather from the ‘Top End’ of 'Down Under'.
Regards 4 Blue Happy Valley State School, Queensland, Australia
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