Massive flooding in Australia cuts off city of 75,000
The arrival of the new year has brought continued misery to northeast Australia, where unprecedented flooding continues in the wake of weeks of torrential rains. The floods have killed at least ten people and covered an area the size of France and Germany combined, cutting off the coastal city of Rockhampton. Today, the military was forced to fly in food, water, and other supplies into Rockhampton, a city of 75,000, due to the lack of unflooded roads into the city. The local airport, all access roads, and all rail lines into the city are closed. The flooding has affected at least 21 other towns, and 200,000 people in northeast Australia. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard stated last week, "Some communities are seeing flood waters higher than they've seen in decades, and for some communities flood waters have never reached these levels before [in] the time that we have been recording floods." According to the National Climatic Data Center, springtime in Australia (September - November) had precipitation 125% of normal--the wettest spring in the country since records began 111 years ago. Some sections of coastal Queensland received over 4 feet (1200 mm) of rain from September through November. Rainfall in Queensland and all of eastern Australia in December was the greatest on record, and the year 2010 was the rainiest year on record for Queensland. The heavy rains are due, in part, to the moderate to strong La Niña event that has been in place since July. The relatively warm waters that accumulate off the northeast coast of Australia during a La Niña typically cause heavy rains over Queensland.
Figure 1. Comparison of river conditions in Queensland from today to December 30, 2010. While some rivers have fallen below major flood stage, the Fitzroy River at Rockhampton is rising, and may peak at levels not seen since 1918 on Wednesday. Image credit: Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
Figure 2. Rainfall in Queensland, Australia for December, 2010. Image credit: Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
The rains over Queensland continued yesterday and today, with many of the flooded regions receiving 1/2 - 1 inch (about 12 - 25 mm) of rain. Total rainfall amounts in the flood region over the past month are generally in the 16 - 24 inch range (400 - 600 mm). Predicted rainfall amounts for the next two days in the flooded region are less than 1/2 inch (12 mm), which should allow for river levels to peak by Tuesday or Wednesday, then slowly fall. However, heavy rains are predicted to affect the area again by Thursday, and it may be several weeks before the summer rains ease enough to allow all of Queensland's rivers to retreat below flood stage. Damage to infrastructure in Australia has been estimated at over $1 billion by the government, and economists have estimated the Australian economy will suffer an additional $6 billion in damage over the coming months due to reduced exports, according to insurance company AIR Worldwide. Queensland is Australia's top coal-producing state, and coal mining and delivery operations are being severely hampered by the flooding. Damage to agriculture is currently estimated at $400 million, and is expected to rise.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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It still looks to me that winter snow pack is increasing even though it melts off more in the summer. I guess that is to be expected. Again, I think the new things we are seeing are too new to show up on that.
I'm not 'listening to HurricaneKatrina' too much, I haven't really noticed many of their blog posts since I am only a sporadic poster.
Since the thermohaline spans the whole ocean, why are changes limited to the northern Atlantic?
Queensland floods: entire town evacuated
5 days ago
Heavy rain in Queensland is easing, but the flooding nightmare is continuing
not surprising since this started out as an Atlantic hurricane blog.
Wouldn't the thermohaline shutdown cause warming off of South Africa and a bunch more hurricanes in the Atlantic as well? This is just based on that map and not on anything I've read.
I understand that open water of any temperature moderates weather a lot. But the idea that wind circulations influence local climates more than ocean proximity makes no sense to me. If that were the cast wouldn't Seattle and London be similar to Fargo and Siberia in climate? It sure seems like proximity to oceans has a tremendous moderating effect.
Overall ACE for the season is adjusted upward to 162.6275. Still to come: TCRs for Earl, Igor, Karl, Matthew, Nicole, Richard, and Tomas.
Flooding in eastern Australia and my thoughts turn to wine. I also wonder how the flooding in California will affect wine crops!
Yikes. This is getting serious.
From: Link
I hear ya.. the weather shorting us sugar, coffee, wheat & cotton last year was bad enough.
Drum are fish, not birds.
No. Weather is part of the climate--as even the article to which you (mis)linked shows--but saying it's the same as climate is no more true than saying one day on the job is the same as a career.
higher than most of the graph; he has to cling to something. ;-)
Click for larger image:
Click for larger image:
Interesting article. To me it makes sense. Interestingly, they refer to Maury's idea that the Gulf Stream accounts for Europe's mild winters as a myth, but this very same myth is stated as fact in another article from the same web site.
The Pacific is relatively cool and fresh, well stratified, while the Atlantic is warm and salty, prone to deep reaching overturning circulation in the northern North Atlantic, which among other consequences leads to a rather warm amiable climate of northern Europe.
Southeast Asian Archipelago: Indonesian and Philippine Seas
The author of this other article apparently is not a climate scientist. The article is strictly about oceanography and the reference to European climate is beside the point of the article. A good editor would have caught the problem, but it illustrates what can happen when we throw rocks at each other (the self-righteous myth bit).
We need to continue to work on it, however, it isn't as if tomorrow everyone is going to abandon their cars and shut off the heat or a/c. (power).
What is the solution? Everyone seems to be big about pointing out there is a problem. I'm all for so called "green" tech, but it has to be obtainable by the masses to make it work. I'd do a solar PV array tomorrow, if I could afford it!
Ummm, that downturn is due to satellite problems. It is bogus data.
Hmm. I still think Alex was a TD as early as Jun. 12.
Yep. I keep looking. If Florida will pass the rebates again I could do it... The problem is that Florida won't promise unlimited funding or even a way to "reserve" your rebate, so many people were left "holding the bag" so to speak.
This is a scary link. A way to make rain in the UAE? How does this affect climate?
Without the difference in strength between the main Gulf Stream and the weaker branch that spans the West Greenland Current, perhaps the Baltic and the southern tip of Greenland should be the same temperature.
Narsaq, Greenland (60.91N):
-11C
Stockholm, Sweden (59.4N):
-8.2C
St. Petersburg, Russia (59.9N):
-8C
Indeed.
Wow. Oh my. That means something big must be pushing the entire Siberian High deep into Western Canada. A similar pattern almost occurred last winter. The storms from North America to Europe nudged the main high from East Siberia over the Beaufort Sea to Alaska and parts of it into Texas. Arctic dipole is going crazy.
This seems like a good question for Grothar.
It must be true...It was on the internet!!!!
Seager et al. (2002) is a poor example of climate modeling, if you ask me. They presented results from 2 models, one which suggested that a cut in the THC would cool Northern Europe and the other less. The model which produced less cooling did not allow for changes in sea-ice, which clearly is happening. Of course, as Seager suggests, the atmosphere does carry warmer air to the north, however, if there is a blocking event over the Nordic Seas, that warm air can not penetrate all the way to the UK or Northern Europe. Last year's Winter weather produced such a blocking event and that's also happened this year, with a new blocking pattern now underway. Last Winter, the south of Greenland was unusually warm as the warm air was diverted westward over Greenland and the Labrador Sea. A similar pattern appears to be occurring this year.
If the THC weakens or shuts down, as it may have done in the 1970's and early 1980's, I think we will see coder conditions. Recall that there was an event associated with this called the Great Salinity Anomaly, which was a pool of fresher water which circulated around the sub-polar gyre of the North Atlantic and may have "capped" the THC as a result. More recent data points to an ongoing freshening of the Nordic Seas as more sea-ice melts and more low salinity water exits the Arctic into the Nordic Seas. Measurements of the THC are difficult to obtain, however, it appears that there is considerable year to year variability. A slowing of the THC would thus be difficult to show, but I think it is likely to be happening today...
Munich Re -
Some 56,000 died in a combination of heatwaves and forest fires in Russia, it said.
http://www.terradaily.com/ reports/ Natural_disasters_killed_295000_in_2010_reinsurer_999.html
In order for global temperatures to match the 2008 dip, they would need to drop another 0.25C in 7 months (from Dec 2010; only in terms of amplitude, while a 0.34C further drop would be needed to match the exact temperature reading). The average Nino-Nina global temperature drop is 0.63C which would fall just short of that required drop. Meanwhile, the average drop in terms of 12-month running average is only 0.29C.
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