We’ve seen Fire and we’ve seen Rain pt2

As a follow on from my previous post Go Welcome Hell on Earth, I have decided to show just how diverse the Australian Weather is becoming. We have always had extreme between the drought, massive storms, cyclones, fires, floods, but this year we have entered a new phase of extremes. Mother Nature has ramped it up several notches and given us this.  I trust you will enjoy the extreme of our 2009 summer.

As Victoria burned other parts of Australia where suffering in a completely opposite and surprising way.

Australia was flooding.

Queensland was being swallowed by rain, followed soon after by New South Wales and then Western Australia. The Monsoonal rains which so often hit areas of the Top end of Oz made an unexpected diversion and a large amount of the State drowned.

Some of the worst hit areas are farming properties isolate for what will be up to another 5 weeks, having been cut off  for up to 3 weeks already.

Floods are not uncommon to Queensland, but it appears in recent years the severity has been intensifying with each year.

While the Fires where devastating Victoria, parts of North Queensland had already been in flood for up to 6 days, with more to come, with rivers already reaching peaks of up to 12 metres, residents where beginning to wonder when it would end.

.To the north, most of Queensland state has been submerged for weeks by the worst flooding in three decades, with more rain expected during the tropical monsoonal season.
Seven people have died, hundreds are homeless and tens of thousands of livestock are starving as vast areas of the state resemble an inland sea.
With floods affecting 62 percent of the state, the state government said Tuesday that damage would exceed 210 million Australian dollars ($136 million).

Moppet and I were on the mainland visiting family, we spent a week near Coffs Harbour on the North Coast of New South Wales when the rains came. This photo is of Lavender Bridge, one of the places we visited before it rained. At first it was a welcome relief from the heat of the previous days, however as the Wednesday progressed and the rain continued, we new it was different, Dorrigo which is built on a mountain Plateau began to disappear behind a thick mass of cloud.  Around 2am The household was awoken by huge claps of thunder, the house rattled and the lightening lit up the whole area.

The rain just bucketed down and continued to flow as if the floodgates of some huge dam had been opened. By Thursday we had enough, water running down the hill and the cattle grate filling with the gravel from the driveway, but still it continued. We could hear the loud Mooing of a cow stranded in rising water of the creek below and awaited the farmer we had called to come and help her out. Friday came and still it rained although the magnitude of quantity had eased and there were moments of respite, it rained on. Come Saturday it was time for Moppet and I to head back just north of Sydney and spend a few days with my Grandmother before making our way home. My son drove us the 5 hours back to Grandmas in torrential rain, (he refused to allow us to get the train) and then back to his home amongst the rains.

As we prepared to depart for Sydney a Text message arrives on my phone: “Hey Mum thanks for coming loved having you here. Oh Guess what we are flooded in.” The town had flooded and was now cut-off from the outside world..

Heres what lavender Bridge looked like during the flood.

TOWNS on the NSW mid-north coast were bracing for further flooding last night after torrential rains and flooded rivers left thousands of people isolated and others desperately sandbagging their homes and businesses.

The town of Bellingen was cut off yesterday after the Bellinger River peaked at 8m, engulfing roads and stranding livestock.The town of 2700 people, 400km north of Sydney, has received more than 375mm of rain in the past two days.

Although Two of my sons and the eldest son’s family where safe on the top of a hill, his partners family were not so lucky, with their home joining the river in about a metre and half of water racing through the lounge room.

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Australia’s populous east coast has been beset by weather extremes of fiery drought and torrential rains that scientists argue are being exacerbated by climate change.

“We’ll be making sure that we have sufficient helicopters as well as volunteers and flood boats in that region to answer any requests for emergency evacuation,” Campbell said.

The Bourke region of New South Wales state’s northwest was declared a natural disaster area Tuesday after 20 homes and several government buildings were flooded, State Emergency Service spokesman Phil Campbell said.

High water also isolated about 5,000 people in towns, villages and farms across the state’s north, he said.

The Bellinger River burst its banks Tuesday, prompting the evacuation of homes and businesses in the town of Bellingen, which has a population of 3,000, and communities downstream, police Chief Inspector Shane Cribb said. With more rain forecast Wednesday, the flood risk has not passed.

The Township of Bourke receiving it annual rainfall in one day, such has been the scale of rain.

Soon after reports came in of Western Australia flooding. Mines closed as they filled with water, townships and cattle properties where cut off, and people where asking what the heck is happening.

Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) — Rains hit Western Australia’s mineral-rich Pilbara region, causing floods and damage to a fresh-water pipeline, threatening supplies, authorities said.

Flood warnings are in place for the Fortescue and Maitland river catchment, Onslow coastal streams and the Ashburton River, the Bureau of Meteorolgy said in separate statements today. Some 353 millimeters (13.9 inches) of rain has fallen in the northwestern town of Pannawonica in the past four days, said Amy Debattista, the bureau’s Port Hedland-based weather observer.

Although this weather system seems to be passing it leaves many Australian wondering what is going on? From the Hell of the Black Saturday Fires in Victoria to the floods in 3 States we have even had snow in November in amongst the havoc, The Weather certainly is changing.

If this is a sign of things to come, then Australia will become a very frightening place to live.

Climatologist have long said to watch Australia to get an insight into what the rest of the world can expect.

If they are right then Climate Change and Global Warming will be rather unsettling and we had better start preparing ourselves as there will be no way of knowing what you will get.

Summer still has a few weeks to run and then its autumn, wondering whats next? White Christmas anyone?