Weather Watching

[Michaelangelica]

Bees could be on the money ;)

Serious rain last few days ;)

Predicted rain all next week. :)

First time that has happened in along time.

Dam levels down to 12%

[Monomer]

Predicted rain all next week. :evil:

First time that has happened in along time.

 

Let's hope the predictions actually transpire. Adelaide's in for another hot week and there's no rain in sight - NSW and Perth has taken it all!

[Boerseun]

In my town, February 2007 was the hottest and driest since records started in the late 1800s.

[Michaelangelica]

In my town, February 2007 was the hottest and driest since records started in the late 1800s.

Locally the ten highest temps. on record have been in the last 12 years.

Still rain about. Mostly on NSW coast not inland where the farmers need it

The cats got scared as they had forgotten what heavy rain looked like.

Sounds as if Q'land and NT are getting some too

Dam levels went up 0.5%

[Monomer]

In my town, February 2007 was the hottest and driest since records started in the late 1800s.

 

So how hot does it get over there?

[Boerseun]

So how hot does it get over there?

For Feb, normally low 30's Celcius average. This year the average was around 36C, with ZERO rain, at all. February used to be after January, our wettest month of the year. (That's the average for maximum temps, by the way)

[Michaelangelica]

It has been raining and storming a lot here lately.

it is great; the bees may have been right.

 

(Why do mushrooms come up so much after lightening storms?)

Rain forest mechanism helps plants survive, brings on rains

 

March 19, 2007

Amazon forests appear to compensate for lack of rain during dry seasons by increasing leaf concentrations to capture sunlight and tapping into water in the soil to carry out photosynthesis.

The process seems to trigger the start of the wet season.

Rain forest mechanism helps plants survive, brings on rains - The Boston Globe

[Michaelangelica]

Yep,

The bees were on the monetY

6 weeks with dam levels rising first time in 8 years.

Cool heavy rain.

I love autumn.

 

and in the Channel country:_

arch 25, 2007

Giant Australian salt lake springs to life: Scientific American

 

SCIENCE NEWS

March 12, 2007

Giant Australian salt lake springs to life

 

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Floodwaters flowed into the world's largest ephemeral lake in outback Australia on Monday, triggering a once-in-a-decade explosion of bird and fish life in place of arid salt flats.

 

Rivers overflowing due to northern monsoon rains emptied into the lake which covers about 1.2 million sq km (463,400 sq mile) in South Australia state.

 

Birds swarmed on the area. "The birds are like a big black blanket," William Creek charter flight operator Trevor Wright told Reuters.

 

The waters pouring through the lake's northern Warburton Groove inlet had started a mass hatching of salt shrimp from eggs laying dormant in the searing flats, he said.

ADVERTISEMENT (article continues below)

60-Second Science Podcast from Scientific American

 

"It's a high-protein feast for all the wading birds. They are just sitting there, scavenging round," Wright said after flying over the remote area at the country's heart.

 

Lake Eyre sits in the middle of one of the world's largest internal river systems and covers large parts of South Australia state, the Northern Territory and Queensland.

 

Lake Eyre basin itself covers an area bigger than France, Germany and Italy.

 

When the lake floods the outback springs to life with large numbers of waterbirds -- pelicans, black cormorants, silver gulls, avocets and banded stilts -- gathering to feast on shrimp, as well as fish.

 

A South Australia state parks spokeswoman said it was still unclear whether weeks of heavy northern rains would be enough to fill the basin or whether the lake would only partly fill. The basin last topped its maximum five meter depth in 1974.

[Michaelangelica]

Well looks like Mr Nino is back & even the coastal rain has dried up.

 

The Murry Darling river system has four weeks water left for most of the farms in Australia that produce most of the food.

Lots of argument and argy-bargy politicking going on but you can't magic water from nowhere. If there is no substantial rain in the next 8-10 weeks the government is telling us prices for basic foodstuffs will soar.

 

Orchards and grape growers have already been hit by out-of -season frosts.

 

In a worst case scenario perennial crops may die. I would hate to see trees and vines my father or grandfather planted die before my eyes. I know I would not cope. I don't know how rural people find the courage to go on. Perhaps they have few choices.

 

Some Pics:

One in a hundred year drought photos :: Water

[Michaelangelica]

Bit of nice rain on the coast. it rained all day the first time I can remember that in awhile

 

Meanwhile inland NSW is grim:

Australia's epic drought: The situation is grim - Independent Online Edition > Australasia

Australia's epic drought: The situation is grim

By Kathy Marks in Sydney

Published: 20 April 2007

 

Australia has warned that it will have to switch off the water supply to the continent's food bowl unless heavy rains break an epic drought - heralding what could be the first climate change-driven disaster to strike a developed nation.

 

The Murray-Darling basin in south-eastern Australia yields 40 per cent of the country's agricultural produce. But the two rivers that feed the region are so pitifully low that there will soon be only enough water for drinking supplies. Australia is in the grip of its worst drought on record, the victim of changing weather patterns attributed to global warming and a government that is only just starting to wake up to the severity of the position.

 

The Prime Minister, John Howard,(bonsai ) a hardened climate-change sceptic, delivered dire tidings to the nation's farmers yesterday. Unless there is significant rainfall in the next six to eight weeks, irrigation will be banned in the principal agricultural area. Crops such as rice, cotton and wine grapes will fail, citrus, olive and almond trees will die, along with livestock.

 

A ban on irrigation, which would remain in place until May next year, spells possible ruin for thousands of farmers, already debt-laden and in despair after six straight years of drought.

 

Lovers of the Australian landscape often cite the poet Dorothea Mackellar who in 1904 penned the classic lines: "I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains." But the land that was Mackellar's muse is now cracked and parched, and its mighty rivers have shrivelled to sluggish brown streams. With paddocks reduced to dust bowls, graziers have been forced to sell off sheep and cows at rock-bottom prices or buy in feed at great expense. Some have already given up, abandoning pastoral properties that have been in their families for generations. The rural suicide rate has soared.

 

Mr Howard acknowledged that the measures are drastic. He said the prolonged dry spell was "unprecedentedly dangerous" for farmers, and for the economy as a whole. Releasing a new report on the state of the Murray and Darling, Mr Howard said: "It is a grim situation, and there is no point in pretending to Australia otherwise. We must all hope and pray there is rain."

 

But prayer may not suffice, and many people are asking why crippling water shortages in the world's driest inhabited continent are only now being addressed with any sense of urgency.

 

The causes of the current drought, which began in 2002 but has been felt most acutely over the past six months, are complex. But few scientists dispute the part played by climate change, which is making Australia hotter and drier.

 

Environmentalists point to the increasing frequency and severity of drought-causing El Niño weather patterns, blamed on global warming. They also note Australia's role in poisoning the Earth's atmosphere. Australians are among the world's biggest per-capita energy consumers, and among the top producers of carbon dioxide emissions. Despite that, the country is one of only two industrialised nations - the United States being the other - that have refused to ratify the 1997 Kyoto protocol. The governments argue that to do so would harm their economies.

 

Until a few months ago, Mr Howard and his ministers pooh-poohed the climate-change doomsayers. The Prime Minister refused to meet Al Gore when he visited Australia to promote his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. He was lukewarm about the landmark report by the British economist Sir Nicholas Stern, which warned that large swaths of Australia's farming land would become unproductive if global temperatures rose by an average of four degrees.

 

Faced with criticism from even conservative sections of the media, Mr Howard realised that he had misread the public mood - grave faux pas in an election year. Last month's report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted more frequent and intense bushfires, tropical cyclones, and catastrophic damage to the Great Barrier Reef. The report also said there would be up to 20 per cent more droughts by 2030. And it said the annual flow in the Murray-Darling basin was likely to fall by 10-25 per cent by 2050. The basin, the size of France and Spain combined, provides 85 per cent of the water used nationally for irrigation.

 

While the government is determined to protect Australia's coal industry, the drought is expected to shave 1 per cent off annual growth this year. The farming sector of a country that once "rode the sheep's back" to prosperity is in desperate straits. With dams and reservoirs drying up, many cities and towns have been forced to introduce severe water restrictions.

 

Mr Howard has softened his rhetoric of late, and says that he now broadly accepts the science behind climate change. He has tried to regain the political initiative, announcing measures including a plan to take over regulatory control of the Murray-Darling river system from state governments.

 

He has declared nuclear power the way forward, and is even considering the merits of joining an international scheme to "trade" carbon dioxide emissions - an idea he opposed in the past.

 

Mr Howard's conservative coalition will face an opposition Labour Party revitalised by a popular new leader, Kevin Rudd, and offering a climate change policy that appears to be more credible than his. Ben Fargher, the head of the National Farmers' Federation, said that if fruit and olive trees died, that could mean "five to six years of lost production". Food producers also warned of major food price rises.

 

Mr Howard acknowledged that an irrigation ban would have a "potentially devastating" impact. But "this is very much in the lap of the gods", he said.

 

How UN warned Australia and New Zealand

 

Excerpts from UN's IPCC report on the threat of global warming to Australia and New Zealand:

 

"As a result of reduced precipitation and increased evaporation, water security problems are projected to intensify by 2030 in south and east Australia and, in New Zealand, in Northland and eastern regions."

 

* "Significant loss of biodiversity is projected to occur by 2020 in some ecologically rich sites, including the Great Barrier Reef and Queensland's tropics. Other sites at risk include the Kakadu wetlands ... and the alpine areas of both countries."

 

* "Ongoing coastal development and population growth in areas such as Cairns and south-east Queensland (Australia) and Northland to Bay of Plenty (New Zealand) are projected to exacerbate risks from sea-level rise and increases in the severity and frequency of storms and coastal flooding by 2050."

 

* "Production from agriculture and forestry by 2030 is projected to decline over much of southern and eastern Australia, and over parts of eastern New Zealand, due to increases in droughts and fires."

 

* "The region has substantial adaptive capacity due to well-developed economies and scientific and technical capabilities, but there are considerable constraints to implementation ... Natural systems have limited adaptive capacity."

Not good news.

I hope the Terra preta conference next week will have some answers.

[Monomer]

Bit of nice rain on the coast. it rained all day the first time I can remember that in awhile

 

We had so much rain here in Adelaide yesterday. It basically rained continuously for about 15 hours, and there's more rain today and even more rain forcast for the next week. :)

[Michaelangelica]

Bit of rain all though NSW last week.

 

That saved 3,000 kangaroos from being shot in Canberra.

 

Many farmers may get in a crop.

 

Here are some pictures of the Australian drought.

Photos: Drought - The Lab - Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Gateway to Science

An alarming statistic here "one farmer takes his own life every four days"

Here is the latest weather in Oz

Australia and Local Weather Forecast, BoM Radar, Map and Report

[Monomer]

Here is the latest weather in Oz

Australia and Local Weather Forecast, BoM Radar, Map and Report

 

It is so cold and wet!!! :bow_flowers:

 

I don't know what happened to Autumn, but we seemed to have gone straight to winter. The thermals are out, the heater is on and the cat's are spending most of the time sleeping under the quilt.

[Queso]

As for Florida,

it's hot

there's no rain

everywhere is catching fire

and I just want the mushrooms to sprout.

[Michaelangelica]

I don't know what going on in Adelaide and west.

but

I just heard on radio that the Eastern States have had their warmest Autumn on record.

The Weather boffins feel that this is "a normal end of el nino event"

 

My daughter in Brisbane says its still hot there.

My other daughter in Tasmania is now acclimatised to the cold.

 

It's just starting to get cold (especially at night) now.

 

I have tomatoes popping up and flowering?

what should I say to them?

or

do they know its going to be a mild winter?

 

Florida sounds good.

Fires are the pits.

[Queso]

yeah everything's on fire

and it's only rained once in months...

 

poor little mushrooms I can feel them screaming to be born

[Michaelangelica]

yeah everything's on fire

and it's only rained once in months...

How many de-salination plants does Florida have?

I was told that house prices on the coast of Florida have plummeted as people can't insure them because of all the hurricanes you have been getting.(T or F?) When the insurance guys start to factor in GW you know its real!

poor little mushrooms I can feel them screaming to be born

They need a bolt of lightning.:bow_flowers:

Then they will come up.