My national weather map tells a story that was first penned back in 1911, when Dorothea MacKellar described our land as one 'of droughts and flooding rains.'

Take the past few days, for example.

Parts of Victoria are recovering from cyclonic winds of up to 180km/h. They were whipped up by a strong cold front that also sent surfing grommets into a frenzy on the NSW south coast, driving waves up to six metres.

Snow forced road closures in Tasmania's Central Highlands, while Darwin basked under 32 degree heat.

Farmers in the wheat belt had their best rain in months. Not so fortunate was the Goulburn Murray, facing a dire outlook of below average rainfall in a summary recently released by the weather bureau.

So yes, Dorothea was certainly onto something. And that's just a daily weather snapshot.

During any given month or season, there are massive climate variations - understandable when you consider Australia's unique geography. In particular, the length of our southern coastline, our massive arid interior, and geographical coordinates.

You see, our southern coastline stretches more than 3000km roughly along the 35th latitude, parallel to Antarctica where surges of bitterly cold polar air move northwards.

The air is still cool when it reaches Australia, colliding with the air coming from our hot desert interior.

This gives our country a climatic set-up unlike any other continent in the southern hemisphere.

The southern African coastline is more rounded, and further north. And while the tip of South America comes to within 1000km of Antarctica, the long spine of the Andes means there is no contrasting hot interior like ours.

That's a macro look at it, a scientific alternative to the poetic observations made by MacKellar almost 100 years ago.

Not quite as dramatic, this month in Sydney: grey, showery skies kicked us off. We were lucky to see even a skerrick of sunshine for close to two weeks, something we Sydneysiders struggle to deal with.

Unlike Melbourne.

They know how to handle the cold. But you'll never hear them complain about it - at least not in the company of Sydney folk - which brings me back to Dorothea.

Yes, Australia is a land of weather and climatic extremes, but my local weather outlook can be a tad lacklustre in between.

For the first two weeks of this month, for example, it was all cloud. And now it's all clear blue skies, day after day.

Yeah, that's Australia - beautiful one day, absolutely perplexing the next.

So let's keep the conversation going. I'd love to hear from you.

Send your weather questions my way and I'll do my best to answer them - because, as we know all too well, it can be a long time waiting between droughts and flooding rain.

Ask Sara your weather questions below - Sara will select the best questions and respond.