Australian Flood Season (Weather)

by dulan drift ⌂, Saturday, January 18, 2020, 08:05 (1532 days ago)

Out of the frying pan and into the flood!

Big rain storm overnight that's still playing out. Places 100 km just north of here have copped 300mm+ and counting - that's typhoon level rain in areas that are not geared up for that. According to the BoM weather site some dams/rivers/creeks are at 'alert' level. Guess we'll find out the damage as the reports come in.

We've had about 120 mm here, which is not a bad level - tank-filler stuff - the rain band does look like it's moved east from here so hopefully we're more or less done

As an example of how climate impacts cascade, ash from bushfires that washed into rivers from rains over the past 10 days has resulted in "100's of thousands" of fish dying. According to reports, “From what I’ve seen I would not be surprised that it’s wiped out every fish in at least 100 kilometres of the river.”

That kind of impact can take eco-systems decades to recover from - providing there are no more events - which there will be.

Australian Flood Season

by dulan drift ⌂, Saturday, January 18, 2020, 14:10 (1532 days ago) @ dulan drift

The reports are in - no casualties that i read of though extensive flooding in south east queensland. A friend from the Gold Coast said his house was partially flooded - and the big hardware chain store was fully flooded by people buying flood clean-up gear. Apart from that it appears there were lots of road closures but just short of a major disaster.
Highest falls were 330mm, including 147 in 2 hours - which is not quite Taiwan level but pretty decent.
System has since moved south east and lost most of its oomph.
Had already mentioned that the fire threat was over here (anywhere north of Sydney) - it's really over now


https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/south-east-queensland-smashed-by-t...

Australian Flood Season

by dan, Saturday, January 18, 2020, 15:17 (1532 days ago) @ dulan drift

In California, the rains following the fires are sometimes more damaging than the fires.

Australian Flood Season

by dan, Saturday, January 18, 2020, 15:16 (1532 days ago) @ dulan drift

Apparently the weather models have been pretty accurate in their predictions of the general effects of climate change. I'm wondering to what degree they take into account these knock off events and the extent to which they can influence the whole thing.

Australian Flood Season

by dulan drift ⌂, Sunday, January 19, 2020, 20:52 (1531 days ago) @ dan

I'm wondering to what degree they take into account these knock off events and the extent to which they can influence the whole thing.

I suspect that's the hardest part to predict - leaves the door open to an unexpected escalation

Australian Flood Season

by dulan drift ⌂, Sunday, February 02, 2020, 21:01 (1517 days ago) @ dulan drift

There's something weird going on that looks like culminating in a downpour here. Extreme heat pushing up from the south west with a cold front behind it that the remnants of the 'cyclone in the centre of Australia' is feeding into.

Rainfall up to 150mm - that's a lot of rain for a place that, unlike Taiwan, doesn't have cement culverts everywhere to funnel off the deluge.


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Australian Flood Season

by dulan drift ⌂, Tuesday, February 04, 2020, 10:12 (1515 days ago) @ dulan drift

The above 150 mm prediction has been downgraded to 70 - which is decent but not creek bank bursting

Meanwhile, queensland has had torrential rain from a low pressure system that came in through the gulf then dragged its tail across the north east of the state - rain extended well inland. Highest fall on the mainland was 421mm in 24 hrs at Ayr. An island near there got 529.

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Australian Flood Season

by dulan drift ⌂, Wednesday, February 12, 2020, 20:45 (1507 days ago) @ dulan drift

Fires are a distant memory now as the rain keeps on coming. We're up to two weeks of heavy rain with floods in Byron Bay, south Qld, and Gold Coast, including falls of 300 mm in a 24 hr period. Tonight it's ramping up here with another 120 mm forecast for tomorrow. We're at the stage where the water table appears to be getting higher than the ground table - see if my head's still above water tomorrow...


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