Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

More Rain

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Residents of my community on the Capricorn Coast in Central Queensland are being warned of two cyclones: Anthony may hit the coast to our north on Monday morning and a second forming near Fiji is scheduled for later in the week. 

The wind has been blowing strongly for two days.  This morning there was a run on food with shelves again emptying at the local supermarket.   This evening the rain is coming off the ocean in waves and with each wave my green frog starts to croak. 

Just to the west of the Capricorn Coast are Queensland’s biggest coal mines already missing deliveries because of the recent flooding which has drenched pits and wrecked railway lines.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. val majkus says

    Hi Jen; good luck; I’ve heard it’s supposed to be crossing the coast on Thursday, is that right
    Hope you’ve got everything tied down and Emily tied to a sandbag or something
    Put some flies in the freezer cos they’ll all blow away and she’ll starve
    I don’t know why people rush to the shops; the same thing happened in Toowoomba the day after the flood
    and our friends in WA are expecting a cyclone (that was the last I heard) might have lessened to a rain depression now

  2. spangled drongo says

    Yes, same here Jen. They reckon we only have another six months and the weather will break.

    I hope they’re letting a bit out of the dams.

    Y’know how, with east coast cyclones, it’s the south western quadrant that’s the worst for weather, giving us those howling ESE gales, well in WA does that still apply?

    IOW does the worst of the wind blow off-shore instead of on-shore in WA?

    Just looking at the chart and it looks like I could have a great spinnaker run westward across the Bight which is most unusual.

  4. cohenite says

    Neville, I’m sure you already know that Karoly and the rest of the pro-AGW commentators stated that the extra heat is evaporating more water into the atmosphere which explains the flooding rain.

    Obviously they are wrong and this explains why:

    http://www.climate4you.com/

    I’m also sure you know about the site but the data for SH and RH is quite revealing.

  5. spangled drongo says

    The strongest wind so far seems to be around the Percys and Whitsundays. It’s currently about right on your longitude so if it is moving westward, you are moving out of its danger zone.

  6. spangled drongo says

    Jen,

    I probably should have said that the danger zone is moving west and north of you.

  7. debbie says

    Stay safe Jen,
    Our son had a couple of hairy days in NW Western Autralia too.
    Luckily that cyclone moved away from towns and communities.
    I hope yours does too.

  8. Dennis Webb says

    Lost coal production from flooding so far may cost as much as A$9.5 billion, Queensland Resources Council said Jan. 27. Bloomsberg

  10. Hasbeen says

    Hang on Jen, & keep your head down. If you don’t have it already, go get plenty of insect repellent. On one occasion, in the Whitsundays, I had 7 boats, & 3 staff up a mangrove creak, hiding from a very large, but not that strong cyclone. Must have been about 82 I think.

    The eye went over us, & we were in the calm for some hours. The sand flies came out, & were so thick we broke out some paper dust masks, to stop them getting into our mouths. It was a relief when the wind came back.

    On another occasion I had 3 large tourist boats, & a couple of smaller ones, & about 8 crew all up creeks. This one the bureau had said was 40 hours away at 6.00 am, but it passed over us before 3.00 pm.
    With this one I was responsible for the families of those crew off with the boats of course. That had me really worried.

    Cyclones are one part of the Queensland boating industry I really don’t miss.

  11. John Sayers says

    hey Hasbeen – great recollections of days past.

    For mossies and sandflies a 50:50 mix of olive oil and Dettol does the trick – you may add a tsp of Vegemite to increase B vitamin.

  13. spangled drongo says

    “Cyclones are one part of the Queensland boating industry I really don’t miss.”

    Hasbeen,

    Yeah, and the trouble is, cyclone surfing at 25 knots, while exciting, only gets you closer to the eye with ever increasing winds and nowhere to hide.

    I’ve tried hiding in the eye and it doesn’t work.

  15. spangled drongo says

    Jen,

    That’s gonna be two more big rain depressions to deal with. It’s getting hard to find a place to put them where they are needed.

    BTW, got John Mac’s interesting email, thanks. Have to give that some thought.

  16. Hasbeen says

    Drongo, I have never been adventurous, or unlucky enough to sail into the eye, but that last one mentioned did give me a few problems.

    When the BOM told us at 6.00 am that we had 40 hours margin, I went ahead with a planned fuel delivery by barge to South Mole Island, who were worried they might run out of power house fuel, if transport became difficult on the mainland, & agreed to do a evacuation run to take any of their house guests who wanted off, back to the mainland.

    So at 9.30 am, with the wind up to 30+knots from the south east, I had the barge pumping fuel ashore at South Mole, & I was there with the little 60 Ft ferry. This was when the BOM changed their forecast. Instead of 40 hours, we now had 8 & 1/2, it would be with us at 6.00pm.

    The barge had pumped 1500 gallons of fuel ashore, so I sent it off back to Shute harbour. 15 minutes later, with the last of the passengers we headed for Shute harbour with the ferry.

    Just a few minutes later we heard a Pan [one below may day] call from Whitsunday Rent a Yacht. Two of their sail yourself charter yachts a 35 & a 40 footer were just west of North Mole, heading under power, for Shute Harbour, & having trouble making headway against the increasing wind & sea. Could anyone help, so off we went.

    I was very lucky, the armature skippers of the rental yachts were both calm, & competent, & soon we were heading for Shute again, with them in tow. Great.

    Not so great when we got a call from the barge. Their port motor had stopped, & they could not make headway to Shute on just one engine. It was not feasible to try to tow a 90Ft barge, along with the 2 yachts I all ready had, so the barge skipper headed for Airlie beach, which did not require any windward steaming.

    When he got there he ran the thing up the beach in muddy bay, as hard as it would go on one engine, & shot through. He had picked up someones mooring with the prop that was going, so it was way up the beach, & moored by a propeller. It took 2 days to get it out & going.

    As it was taking some time to get in, with my tow, I radioed my wife to get the buss & pick up the families of the crew members who were up creaks with other boats, & take them to a cement brick house well above cyclone surge height.

    As we got into Shute, at about 3.00pm, the whole water surface of the place began “smoking” & did so for about 3 minutes. This I believe indicates something a bit over 70 knots wind speed.

    By the time we had got rid of the yachts, & got along side the jetty, it was 3.30pm, & it was all over. The BOM had only been wrong by 30 & 1/2 hours.

    Three of the departing house guests told me that the trip had been the best “fun” they had ever had, & six wanted me to take them back to the island. I just wanted to go to bed.

  17. spangled drongo says

    Hasbeen,

    I can quite imagine. When the ocean starts to “smoke” there is only one way you can go and that is dead downwind.

    People tell you that you get big waves in a big blow but in my experience and as you just said, from 70 knots onward it “smokes” and flattens out into long, low, very fast swells. If your’re silly enough to surf these, you’ll never get a faster wave but you can’t see the surface of the water for the metre deep “smoke”.

    When the wind eases back to 50 knots or so then the big waves start to form.

  18. val majkus says

    Hasbeen that’s a wonderful story
    I recall plunging into a flooded river on the back of a horse when I was about 10 years old and I must say I still remember how terrifying that was
    the horse takes you across of course but …. well I was pretty young at the time
    But your story surpasses that by 100 times
    Congratulations you’re one of the heroes

  19. Hasbeen says

    Thanks for that val, but it was nothing particularly unusual, more a comedy of errors than anything heroic.

    Most of the professional boaties, & quite a few older amateur ones in cyclone country would have similar experiences & stories. It may be less so today, as people are more inclined to treat a boat as expendable than we were back then, but often you are saving the boat to save the people.

    I think I’d be more worried in a flood with logs & other such killers after me, & the horse I was depending on. I suppose most of us do some of these things when we are young & silly. Luckily, most of us survive to tell the story.

  20. hunter says

    It appears you are having a 2010-2011 period like 2005 was in the Atlantic cyclone basin.
    God speed and good luck on getting past this. The season will end, and life will continue on.
    Stay safe.

  22. val majkus says

    thanks for that image John, it’s scary
    hope Jen and everyone else gets to a safe spot to ride it out
    O/T BUT Jo Nova has an interesting post with great slides
    http://joannenova.com.au/
    The oceans, clouds and cosmic rays drive the climate, not CO2

    Dr Noor van Andel spoke at the Dutch Meteorological Institute (KNMI), provocatively concluding there is no observational evidence for the influence of CO2 on past or present climate. He has released a high caliber slide set. He is the former head of research at Akzo Nobel.

    In the very long run, we need not mind about CO2 or global warming, but instead about higher [galactic cosmic ray] activity and global cooling. There is no way we can influence [galactic cosmic ray] activity, originating in active black holes and imploding supernovae.
    Essentially he uses empirical evidence to draw the conclusion that most recent climate variability is due to Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and to Cosmic Ray effect as described by Svensmark. This fits with what William Kinninmonth explained and I described as essentially a massive pool of “stored cold” in the abyssal depths of the oceans, which erratically reaches up and pulls in heat from the insubstantial atmosphere above. Air temperatures are at the beck and call of the releases of this “cold” (yes I know cold is just an absence of heat). In El Nino years when the cold pool lies deep and unstirred, the incoming solar heat builds up on the surface.

  25. gavin says

    Unfortunately. as more of QLD becomes uninhabitable our AGW may even swipe dear old Spangles of his perch