For the last three autumns, Lake Eyre in central Australia has received runoff from good flooding rains.
These photographs were taken by Rhyl as she flew from Quilpie to Birdsville to Lake Eyre in July 2010.
And the flood waters are arriving again this year. 
Wild flowers as a mass of yellow from the air.
A land of patterns, according to Rhyl. 
Click on each image for a better view.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.
beautiful, thanks Rhyl
Awesome photos!
Look at this spectacular demonstration of our land of drought and flooding rains.
Our natural environmental assets have just shown us all that they are perfectly capable of surviving a prolonged drought and when they bounce back, they do it in amazing ways.
I would love to go out there and see Lake Eyre.
Landline played the full one hour version of Paul Lockyer’s doco on Lake Eyre last Sunday – it included the recent eastern floods and followed the water all the way to the lower lakes. Amazing footage. Unfortunately it was a one off – there’s no online replay, you have to buy the DVD.
“South Australian Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Grace Portolesi told AAP that those who sailed on the waterway illegally could face penalties of up to $50,000 under the Aboriginal Heritage Act”
How harmless is sailing a dinghy?
It does a lot less damage than driving a vehicle on a dirt road and is allowed on fresh-water dams for human consumption yet this is now a banned activity on salt-lake Eyre.
We may have to avert our eyes when next we are shown a picture of this flooding event.
What a mad world we live in!
Anyone interested in this subject should have a look at Dr Vincent Kotwicki’s Lake Eyre Site: http://www.k26.com/eyre/index.html.
Reading an abstract from that link there is a level of ‘uncertainty’ as to when Lake Eyre might receive large inflows, although the authors believe it usually happens during La Nina years.
The Eemian was a few degrees warmer than the Holocene and Lake Eyre was full (25m deep) between 125,000 – 90,000 years BP.
During a brief interstadial between 65,000 and 60,000 years BP it may have been significantly deeper.
By 40,000 years BP there was a lot more local precipitation, with a modest monsoon inflow. It had become a low level perrenial lake.
In an AGW world I can see thousands of holiday makers in tiny sailboats….
“By 40,000 years BP there was a lot more local precipitation, with a modest monsoon inflow. It had become a low level perrenial lake.”
eg, the aboriginals were probably “sailing” around on it then in their canoes.
But fibreglass = sinful; bark = righteous.