The Peculiar Climate of Ballarat

Snow in Ballarat in 1887. (Source: City of Ballarat)

We Ballaratians have always copped our fair share of banter from outsiders when it comes to the weather, and sometimes we may even be guilty of a little complaining about it ourselves! Residents and visitors alike have been known to describe our weather, and winter in particular, in rather bleak terms: ‘bitterly cold,’ ‘overcast,’ ‘grey and windy,’ ‘rainy and miserable,’ ‘lots of morning frost,’ ‘exceptionally unpleasant,’ ‘dismal,’ ‘four seasons in one day,' just to name a few. In fact, our reputation is older than the city itself. When news of the discovery of gold on Yuille's sheep run was still fresh and the name of Ballarat as a township was yet to be put on the map, one correspondent wrote back to Melbourne: 'The gold is very good... but the weather is very bad...' (The Argus, 19th September 1851)

Relative to the rest of Australia, the sentiment may well be justified – Ballarat has a mean annual temperature sitting at just 12.3˚C, colder than any other major Australian city, and colder even than Wellington, Paris, or New York. I once knew an old Glaswegian who constantly complained that Ballarat was ‘colder than Scotland!’ That, of course, is a step too far. But there may be a grain of truth in the notion, not that it is colder here, but that it feels colder here. While Glasgow is 2 to 3˚ colder than Ballarat when it comes to actual temperature, it enjoys warm breezes from the Gulf Stream originating in distant tropical Florida. On the other hand, Ballarat’s highland location often exposes us to strong winds and cold fronts, bringing frigid air from Antarctica. And not only are we one of the coldest cities in Australia, but also one of the windiest, with a wind chill factor capable of reducing the apparent temperature by up to 10˚C. Needless to say, thick jumpers, warm coats, and puffer jackets are a common sight for much of the year in Ballarat.

One of Australia's few cities to see occasional snowfall, though in terms of actual temperature winters are not as harsh as much of the northern hemisphere.

What about our plants? They are unaffected by the wind chill we humans can find so unpleasant. What plants care about is actual temperature, but even by this measure Ballarat’s cool climate is more akin to cities such as London and Paris than any other major city on the Australian mainland, including nearby Melbourne. Hence the popularity of English-style gardens in Ballarat. Deciduous trees, roses, bulbs, and herbaceous perennials are in abundance, especially in the old, established suburbs of our city. Our streets are adorned with oak, ash, elm, and plane, forming part of the heritage that this historic city is famous for.

A frosty morning at Hollyhock Hill: frozen redcurrant leaves.

Compared with the rest of mainland Australia, Ballaratians share the coldness of their climate with just a few small towns that sit atop the Great Dividing Range, such as Lithgow in New South Wales. So, with no other major city on the mainland quite like Ballarat, where else in the world is? To answer that, here is a look at some other parts of the world that share a climate similar to Ballarat, with consideration given to a variety of factors, including seasonal and annual temperature and rainfall, latitude, altitude, wind speed, and sunshine hours.

OCEANIA

515 km away SSE as the crow flies, Launceston in Tasmania is, climatically speaking, our closest sister city in Australia and the world. Launceston has near identical average temperature, rainfall, wind speed, and sunshine hours as Ballarat. What grows in Launceston will certainly grow here!

Across the Tasman and even further south, another city in the southern hemisphere with a similar climate to Ballarat is Christchurch. Ballarat and Christchurch both share a familiar title: 'Garden City', and climatically speaking, after Launceston there is nowhere in the world as similar to Ballarat as this beautiful city on the South Island of New Zealand, with similar rainfall, wet and dry seasons, and average temperatures.

SOUTH AMERICA

The rest of the southern hemisphere at our latitude is ocean, with one exception: the bottom tip of South America. Here, Temuco, Concepcion, and Talca, in central to southern Chile, are the most like us, albeit with heavier winter rains. Strikingly similar in temperature range with an identical average temperature, Temuco sits between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes at a similar latitude and altitude to Ballarat. Buddleja globosa is native to this part of the world, as well as Araucaria araucana, a.k.a. the Monkey Puzzle tree. Several alstroemeria species are also native to Chile, as well as one of our favourite annuals – the orchid-like Schizanthus (angel wings). Slightly further south is the native homeland of Geum chiloense, a garden favourite in Ballarat. Like here, however, many of the naturalised and established plants in Temuco are introduced from Europe or elsewhere. Temuco experiences very wet winters, and, like Ballarat, summer is the drier season.

NORTH AMERICA

The oceans have a cooling effect on the globe, and because there is less ocean and more land in the northern hemisphere it is on the whole hotter than the southern. This means that similar climates to Ballarat are usually found at a higher latitude in the northern hemisphere. On the west coast of North America, San Francisco lies at the equivalent latitude to us. But to find an equivalent temperature we need to look further north, to the Pacific Northwest region, also known as Cascadia.

Here, Portland and Seattle are our closest sister-cities, with very similar average temperatures to Ballarat throughout the whole year. Like our South American relatives, this region also receives slightly higher annual rainfall than us, but the pattern is still the same – loads of drizzle in the winter, and dry in the summer. (Perhaps Ballarat's notorious reputation for prolonged drizzly weather is outdone by Seattle, subject of the famous movie line, 'It rains nine months of the year in Seattle!') Other similar cities and towns in this region include Kent, Tacoma, and Vancouver USA (not to be confused with Vancouver in Canada) in Washington State, and Salem and Eugene in Oregon. Plants native to this region which grow well in our garden include heucheras, penstemons, and lupins. Ballarat is also home to a magnificent stand of Douglas firs, native to Oregon.

EUROPE

In Europe, the northern Spanish cities of Vitoria-Gasteiz and Pamplona in the Basque Country are our closest relatives. In fact, Vitoria-Gasteiz, known as the 'Green Capital of Europe', comes in at No. 3 in likeness to Ballarat after Launceston and Christchurch. The amount of introduced flora we have in common with this region is remarkable, thanks to our near identical climates – like us in everything from altitude to annual rainfall, to the wet winter/dry summer pattern, to the average annual temperature range and sunshine hours. Our most common plantation forests, Eucalyptus and Monterey Pine (Pinus radiata), are also the favoured plantation timbers in this northwest region of 'Green Spain', alongside their native beech and oak forests. Even most of our weeds are the same, as are most of the flowers that readily naturalise in our gardens. This is the native homeland of some of our all-time favourite naturalised garden flowers, such as aquilegias, foxgloves, sweet scabious (pincushion flower), poppies, Spanish bluebells, and daffodils. Buxus sempervirens, what we call ‘English’ box, has its main native range across this region of northern Spain as well as southern France. Other similar cities in western Europe include Gijon and Valladolid in Spain, and Poitiers in France. London and Paris are also quite like us, to the extent that Ballarat's climate has more in common with these two cities than with any of Australia's capital cities.

A visiting Red Spotted Jezebel and one of our own bees, both feeding on sweet scabious, native to Spain and France.

Columbines, native to Europe.

 AFRICA

The places in Africa with a climate most similar to Ballarat are at opposite ends of the continent: the Western Cape region of South Africa and the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Like Ballarat, both these regions are cold spots within a much warmer continent.

Stellenbosch, in the Western Cape, matches our temperature and rainfall patterns almost perfectly, and South Africa is the origin of many garden plants that grow prolifically in Ballarat such as agapanthus and arum lilies. A number of our favourite bulbs and corms are South African and grow spectacularly well – Dierama pulcherrimum (fairy fishing rod), Gladiolus carneus (painted lady), Sparaxis tricolor (harlequin flower), and Ixia polistachya (African corn lily).

Ifrane, in the Atlas Mountains, experiences near identical mean annual maximum and minimum temperatures to us, but with more seasonal extremes: heat in summer and significant snowfall in winter. Mediterranean plants such as lavender and rock roses are native to the Atlas Mountains, both of which also grow well here, and Ballarat is home to a number of fine specimens of the stately Atlas cedar.

Mass planting of Gladiolus carneus, a native of South Africa.

ASIA

The world's biggest continent, Asia, surprisingly has nowhere quite as similar to us as the places already mentioned. The closest it gets is in parts of western Asia, especially in Turkey. We have a lot in common with Istanbul and Bursa, cities at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, as well as Ankara, the nation's capital, although like the Atlas Mountains the seasons in this region are generally more extreme. This part of the world is the original homeland of the damask rose, tulips, snowdrops, lilies, cherry trees, the Smyrna quince, around 100 species of salvia, and that most important of the world’s food crops, wheat. The Turkish natives Stachys byzantina (lamb's ear) and Iris orientalis (Turkish iris) grow prolifically in our garden. Sweet peas, another favourite of ours, were once used as hedge plants in the palace gardens of the Ottoman Empire.

Smyrna quince, a Turkish native, harvested at Hollyhock Hill.

Both southern and eastern Asia experience a completely different rainfall pattern to us, as these regions are affected by the Indian Summer Monsoon, which make for very wet summers. Although Ballarat can sporadically receive heavy rainfall in the warm months, our general trend is for a dry summer. We nevertheless share some similarities in temperature range with the Korean peninsula and the Himalayan foothills, and, as long as they receive adequate watering in summer, we seem to have no difficulty growing many species in our garden that are native to Japan, Korea, Tibet, Kashmir, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Iran, and even Siberia. One benefit to growing plants endemic to these regions is that, not being in their natural climate, they are less likely to become invasive. On the other hand,  they may need a little more tender love and care.

Our favourite Geranium, ‘Rozanne’, is a hybrid of two species native to the Himalayas. The Himalayan Butterfly Bush, Buddleja colvillei, the Himalayan cedar, Cedrus deodara, and Clematis montana are some more treasured plants in our garden originally from this mountain range. We also grow buddleja species and hydrangeas that are native to eastern Asia; Fatsia japonica, native to Korea; Salvia yangii, native to Afghanistan and western Asia; Lamprocapnos spectabilis, native from Korea through to Siberia, and the Siberian dogwood, Cornus alba, native to – you guessed it – Siberia.

A close-up of the beautiful Asian bleeding heart, Lamprocapnos spectabilis, native from Korea to Siberia.

Tasmania, Canterbury, Araucania, Cascadia, the Basque Country, Aquitaine, the Western Cape, the Atlas Mountains, the Bosporus, and Anatolia; Ballarat shares a climate in common with some of the most stunningly beautiful natural landscapes in the world, and if I ever find myself in any of these far-flung locations I will be sure to spend some time exploring their parks and gardens, knowing that whatever grows well there will grow well here, too.

So, dear fellow Ballaratians, the next time someone makes a wise crack about ‘Ballarat weather’, you can tell them that it is our much-maligned climate that makes Ballarat's gardens so beautiful. Of course, we could always do with a little less of that bracing wind (a visiting friend from Singapore once opened the window and exclaimed, 'Air-conditioning on the outside!'), but since heatwaves and warming climates are now such a global concern, is there really anything wrong with living in the coolest city of this mostly hot and sunburnt country?