How High/Low is Yours?

[Mick McLoughlin]

Maggi if you want to change it to old money? Tools, options gives choice of settings for elevation.

[Maggi Young]

Steady, Mick, no need to confuse me more! I don't find those doofers easy to navigate and the page size seems tochange on me for no reason. Never mind, it's not important, I'll have a play with it sometime and see if I can make sense!

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Our house and garden is at 15 m in the middle of a residential area so quite sheltered from heavy winds compared to many others here.
Prevailing winds here are from the West, we get quite a fair amount of rain but rarely any snow and if so only for a couple of days.

It was a relief to hear lately that sea level would "only" rise 6 m by the end of the century (that will be a relief to Ann as well... )

[David Shaw]

David, the sea is about three miles away to the north west. We are protected from winds from this direction by the Culbin Forest which comes to within about a fields distance of the village. To the south east low hills rise about five miles away.
The prevailing wind is from the south west and as this strikes the Monadliath Mountains first we benefit from the Fhonne (sp?) effect giving us a favourable micro climate. We are exposed to the wind from the north and the east.
Soils are light to such an extent that when local farmers prepare the fields for sowing spring barley a strong wind can create a sand storm of such magnitude that the local authority have to deploy the snow ploughs to clear the roads!
I sometimes complain about the weather but overall this is not a bad place to live.

[David Nicholson]

Steady, Mick, no need to confuse me more! I don't find those doofers easy to navigate and the page size seems tochange on me for no reason. Never mind, it's not important, I'll have a play with it sometime and see if I can make sense!

Maggi, others have explained much better than I could, I only found the elevation figure by chance. I'ts making some very interesting reading!

[SueG]

Hi David
Your initial post got me thinking and I've had a look at where I live this morning and discovered I'm at 50m - which is higher than I thought.

Mind you - my holiday island for this year rises to a maximum of 6 m so we'll have to hope sea levels don't rise before late June!

Sue

[David Nicholson]

My garden is at 360 metres which is around 1,200 feet. Friends in Australia's Blue Mountains garden at at least twice that.

My winds come from every direction, hot, dry from the north west and bitterly cold off the southern ocean, then a mean, cold wind almost every day off the sea to the east. It's a very healthy atmosphere here. But because there's almost always some air movement, there's very little frost. Much less than on the Taieri Plain below me or in Dunedin, 15 km (as the crow flies) away.

So far Lesley's garden is the highest at 1200 feet (I stll can't think meters-I even keep a little conversion chart in my wallet for use in Nurseries and Garden Centres) and possibly Paddy is in most danger of getting his feet wet.

Lesley referred to the Taieri Plain in her post-picture here, just beautiful.

[Lesley Cox]

Goodness David, where did you get that? The town down below is Mosgiel where I do my shopping, banking, doctor, post office etc and the picture is taken from about 3 kms from where I live, so far as I can see.

The long, low hill in the backgound is The Maungatua (Maori word maunga = mountain) and though it's low and close to the coast and Dunedin, there are wonderful plants there like Herpolirion novae-zelandiae in its glorious sky blue form, Celmisia argentea and many others and the blue orchid Thelymita venosa along with at least 4 other orchid species. Also of course the super flat cushions of Phyllacne, Donatia and various Dracophyllums. A magical place and only half an hour from the city

[Lesley Cox]

So far as I can see from an atlas, the top of the Maungatua is around 900 metres but one of my Australian gardener friends gardens at well over 1000m, in the Wollemi National Park. No wonder he gets snow and frost in the winter.

[Anthony Darby]

I can only work out the height I am above the ground on Google Earth?

[Joakim B]

Adarby
The thing called elev is elevation I presume and that is in between the cordinates and the "eye hight"

I have the Hungarian house at 305m =1000feet if I am correct here the difference to the end of the garden is 16m and that is an 75m so it is steep! It was a great google picture with great resolution
The Swedish summerhouse (parents) at 35m = 105 feet
Joakim

[Susan]

In the 'mine is bigger than yours' argument, I have just been on Google Earth and found out, much to my surprise , that our section (just over 2.2hectares) goes from 1558ft at our lower boundary to 1642 at the top of our paddock Our house and where the major part of our garden is, is around 1602ft, or around about 480 metres.  We have always known that when the weather forecast says snow to 300 metres that we will probably be hit, but now after 30 years I am going to have to worry about snow forecast to 400 metres as well! We were always under the impression that we lived at 1000ft or just over 300 metres. We were hoping that global warming was going to turn us into a seaside resort - oh well...

Maybe that is why some alpines such as Ranunculus lyalli and some of the Celmisias grow reasonably well here.  I often think that altitude has a lot to do with the successful growing of our natives. 

Susan

[Linda_Foulis]

It's quite amazing, to me, when I think about it. In Okotoks, Alberta, Canada I garden at 1053m or 3454 ft.  I've never even seen an ocean or sea.  Our growing season, on average is a mere 112 days. 

I should move down the slope. 

[Anthony Darby]

So how do I find the height I am above sea level on Google Earth? The elevation certainly isn't it because it changes when I zoom in, and a ground level it is zero.

[Thomas Huber]

Anthony you can find the height below on the left side of the picture
beneath the coordinates!