Strong and gusty winds to bite parts of New South Wales as frosty temperatures sweep Victoria
Wild weather conditions are predicted to lash parts of New South Wales on Sunday afternoon, with conditions in Victoria expected to remain icy as the state is swept by another cold front.
The Bureau of Meteorology forecast weather conditions in NSW would ease on Sunday morning before picking up again with strong and gusty winds in many areas of the state for the rest of the day.
Continue reading...Delays at Melbourne and Sydney airports, Frankston pier ripped from its moorings and snow at the AFL as polar blast strikes
Icy winds up to 120km/h, snow, wild surf and rain continued to lash South Australia, Victoria and parts of New South Waleson Friday, and snow fell at the AFL in Canberra.
The “strongest weather system this winter” to hit south-east Australia has continued its path of carnage across the country, grounding flights in Sydney and Melbourne, and leading to hundreds of calls to the State Emergency Service across all three states.
Continue reading...CSIRO says dramatic climate events are compounding the effects of underlying global heating
Extreme climate events such as heatwaves, floods and drought damaged 45% of the marine ecosystems along Australia’s coast in a seven-year period, CSIRO research shows.
More than 8,000km of Australia’s coast was affected by extreme climate events from 2011 to 2017, and in some cases they caused irreversible changes to marine habitats.
Continue reading...Sydney and other airports have experienced delays caused by problems with the electronic smart-gate passport processing
A nationwide security outage believed to be linked to Australian Border Force terminals is causing delays at airports across Australia.
The outage caused delays of between 15 and 30 minutes at airports including Sydney and Brisbane on Monday morning.
Continue reading...The CBD reached just 10.6C while Ballarat also had its coldest May day in 19 years
Melbourne has shivered through its coldest May day in nearly 20 years, with snow falling in Ballarat and widespread icy roads making conditions slippery.
The CBD reached just 10.6C on Wednesday, making it Melbourne’s coldest May day since 2000.
Continue reading...Gusts of up to 91km/h recorded, leaving thousands of properties without power
A severe weather warning for Perth and Western Australia’s Goldfields-Midlands region has been cancelled but remained in place on Friday afternoon for the state’s south, where the first significant cold front of the year could bring snow.
Strong winds in the early hours of Friday ripped the roof off a house on Shorehaven Boulevard in Alkimos on the city’s northern fringe. The owners were not at home.
Continue reading...As the Northern Territory begins its big mop-up after Cyclone Trevor, local authorities have hosed down racism claims concerning evacuation efforts.
Trevor forced mass evacuations before it made landfall on Saturday morning as a category four system, with destructive winds gusting up to 250km/h.
Continue reading...Residents of Port Hedland and Karratha in Western Australia prepare for Cyclone Veronica, due to hit on Sunday morning
Cyclone Trevor has struck the Northern Territory as a category four system, hammering remote communities with destructive 250 km/h winds and torrential rain.
Continue reading...Gatton, Beaudesert and Archerfield among towns with record-breaking maximum temperatures for the month
Multiple Queensland heat records have been broken for March, with some areas recording temperatures of more than 10 degrees above their average maximum.
Highs of 40C or more in the state’s south-east were recorded for the first time in March, with the town of Gatton reaching 40C on Monday and 41.1C on Tuesday, about 11 degrees above its average maximum temperature for the month.
Continue reading...Fire crews rush to build containment lines ahead of cold change expected to bring gusty winds and dry lightning
Firefighters in Victoria are rushing to build containment lines around fires burning east of Melbourne before “gusty and erratic” winds reach the area on Wednesday.
At least nine buildings, including homes, were destroyed in two out of control bushfires at Bunyip and Yinnar South in West Gippsland on Sunday, and an emergency warning was issued for a third near Dargo in the high country in east Gippsland.
Continue reading...‘Unpredictable’ storm could continue to bring abnormally high tides and damaging winds
East coast surfers have defied warnings about large swells whipped up by ex-cyclone Oma, a sub-tropical system that intensified into a category two storm early on Saturday but was downgraded by 11am after taking a south-eastern turn.
The storm, twice the diameter of 2017’s deadly cyclone Debbie, was tracking south towards Lord Howe Island but was predicted to turn and head north again.
Continue reading...Study rates this week’s unprecedented monsoonal rainfall as comparable to a one in 1,000-year flood
Australian authorities must plan for more severe floods, experts have warned, amid concern that the management of the Townsville Ross River dam contributed to extensive flooding when a massive amount of water was released downstream.
The decision to open the floodgates when the dam water level reached 43m was based on a 2012 study that warned doing so could cause more extensive property damage during the most extreme flooding events.
Continue reading...Residents urged to seek higher ground as water surges at 2,000 cubic metres a minute from Ross river dam
Residents in the Queensland city of Townsville – where up to 500 homes are already under water – were urged to seek higher ground on Sunday as heavy downpours forced the floodgates to the city’s swollen Ross river dam to be completely opened.
A heavy deluge of rain on Sunday pushed dam levels to almost 250% capacity with authorities having to open the floodgates, almost doubling the amount of water flowing out of the catchment.
Continue reading...There are several more days to go in this flood event, Bureau of Meteorology warns
Queensland authorities have said the state’s north was entering “unprecedented territory” as monsoon rains battered the city of Townsville, setting record flood levels and destroying homes.
As the natural disaster entered its four day, the state emergency service confirmed on Saturday that 80 people had been rescued. It was too early to quantify the damage to homes, although some media reports said at least 50 homes had been affected so far.
Continue reading...Bureau of Meteorology expecting rainfall totals of up to 400mm per day for multiple days
Residents in northern Queensland have been warned to prepare for more downpours and flooding over the weekend and into next week amid a monsoon that has dumped more than 1.2 metres of rain in some places.
A huge swath of the state stretching 850km from Daintree in far north Queensland to Mackay in the southern end of the tropical belt has been designated as a flood watch zone. The area includes the Great Barrier Reef tourist centre of Cairns as well as parts of Cape York peninsula in the far north.
Continue reading...Up to 100 more homes face flooding after mayor orders high-risk plan to open floodgates on the Ross River dam
One hundred homes could be flooded in Townsville after the city’s mayor sanctioned the high-risk release of dam water to save the area from more widespread inundation following more than 1.1 metres of rain.
Announcing the emergency measure for the Ross River dam on Friday, the mayor Jenny Hill said there were no guarantees the plan would work. Between 90 and 100 homes downstream from the dam were being evacuated, she added.
Continue reading...Ferry crossing in far-north Queensland closed after 500mm of rain in 24 hours pushed river to highest level in 118 years
Hundreds of people remain cut off after a deluge pushed far-north Queensland’s Daintree River to a record level.
The river peaked at close to 12.6 metres on Saturday night, breaking a record that stood for 118 years.
Continue reading...Low dam levels and the drought lead New South Wales government to act
Sydney’s desalination plant was likely to be switched on this weekend because of falling dam levels and the drought, the New South Wales resources minister said.
The plant is turned on when water storages drop below 60%.
Continue reading...With high temperatures also forecast for Victoria and NSW, there are warnings about potential power outages and blackouts, as well as total fire bans amid worsening weather. Follow developments live
Yes please.
Elite marketing by Royal Park Foodland #adelaideheatwave pic.twitter.com/IMMLZdywLq
Just on the issue of heatwaves and climate change, the ABC Melbourne presenter Rafael Epstein has pointed to recent statements from Victoria’s Bureau of Meteorology (Bom).
Just in case someone says hot weather has nothing to do with climate change
"Australia's climate is increasingly influenced by global warming... has warmed by just over one degree since 1910, with most of the warming occurring since 1950."
From @BOM_Vic this month
It was 48.9C last Tuesday in Port Augusta, South Australia, an old harbour city that now harvests solar power. Michelle Coles, the owner of the local cinema, took off her shoes at night to test the concrete before letting the dogs out. “People tend to stay at home,” she said. “They don’t walk around when it’s like this.”
It’s easy to see why: in the middle of the day it takes seconds to blister a dog’s paw or child’s foot. In Mildura, in northern Victoria, last week gardeners burned their hands when they picked up their tools, which had been left in the sun at 46C. Fish were dying in the rivers.
Continue reading...