Crikey it’s wet

[onetrack]

I don't think anything has changed in hundreds of years, Nev. This is Australia, land of extremes. Look up the old newspapers from the 1800's on Trove and read about the unbelievable floods in the Northern NSW rivers in the 1800's.

 

Pull out S.A. rail history and get a look at the massive washouts on the Ghan line, 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 years ago. Miles of track and embankments washed away - regularly.

 

Ron Fitchs book on the S.A. and Commonwealth Railways ("Australian Railwayman") is full of railway flooding disasters that would make you weep. Ron Fitch lived to 105, and saw it all.

 

The Murray River massive flood of 2022/2023, still didn't reach the major flood level of the Murray River in the 1870 flood! So much for "weather events getting worse"! It's a beat-up of major proportions.

I've seen major floods in the early 1960's in W.A. that I have never seen since. And Global Warming wasn't a buzzword, back then.

[facthunter]

It's happening Mate. More energy from extra water in the atmosphere  from rising sea temps Ie Latent Heat of vaporisation of water. It's an enormous amount of energy Comes from tropical Maritime Air Masses. More extreme and More Often. Lows persist more  distance down both east and western coasts from the equator than previously.  Tracks and roads are Built better than the previous ones but still fail.. and will continue to do so.

[onetrack]

Our current roads and railways only fail because they're built to meet one-in-50 year floods. If they were built to meet one-in-100 year floods, we would not be able to afford them.

 

Roads need rebuilding after 50 years anyway, due to massive levels of traffic hammering and increasing traffic levels.

[facthunter]

Depends on where you put them and  how you allow water to pass. Resurfacing is another Matter entirely and heavy trucks do the Most damage when the soil gets soft. . Nev

[pmccarthy]

We have always been used to it. Nothing has changed.

[facthunter]

Bull$#!t. You are kidding yourself. with wishful thinking. Sea temps are Much warmer and that's a big factor in climate. Higher more unstable clouds. More ENERGY. How good is your Met Knowledge?  Nev

[willedoo]

3 hours ago, onetrack said:

This is Warriana Creek at Beltana, S of Leigh Creek. Nothing surer than the fact that Lake Eyre will fill to overflowing shortly.

That whole area must be like one big sink. I remember when we worked around Lake Eyre in 1984, we were camped on the Macumba not far from where it heads into the lake. The north bank we were camped on was low but across the waterhole looking south, the high sand dune system had been cut vertical like a knife leaving a sheer sand cliff of about seventy or eighty feet height above the water line. At a later date I was up there and it was amazing to stand there among flood debris and look down on the camp so far below. It's hard to get your head around 80' floodwaters when you can't see it, but the evidence was scary enough. It was a similar thing when we took the chopper up the Warburton, huge vertical cuts in the sand dune system like a knife through butter.

 

Where I live, the nearest town recorded 90" of rain for January in the late 1800's. Local history says the road was cut for five months that year.

[facthunter]

Most of that water comes from the Channel country way north. Nev

[onetrack]

My father lived and worked on Doolgunna Station, about 120kms N of Meekatharra, during the Great Depression, from early 1930 to sometime in 1934. Doolgunna is in the upper catchment area of the Gascoyne River.

He would also spend time working as a fencer on numerous other stations in the Gascoyne region. He then spent a further 3 years doing water-boring in the same region and further afield, right down to the Northern Wheatbelt of W.A.

 

In March 1934, a big cyclone cut across the Gascoyne region, bringing huge falls of rain with it. Dad and two other blokes were fencing on station further West from Doolgunna, I think it may have been Three Rivers Station, but I'm not sure now. Three Rivers has frontage to the massive Gascoyne River.

Anyway, where they were working was in the Gascoyne flood plain. They each had horses and a camel-drawn dray with supplies on it, designed to last about three weeks at a minimum.

 

Dad said it started raining, and rained heavily, non-stop for 3 days. They got around 15 inches (380mm) of rain in that three days. He said the curious thing about the whole episode was, just before the rain started, the three camels they had on the dray, laid down, turned their heads against their flanks - and died!

He reckoned they somehow knew a big flood was coming, and camels can't handle wet muddy conditions, their legs splay out in greasy mud, and they bellow out in pain.

 

So, they stopped working for three days - and next thing, the floodwaters from the rising Gascoyne started surrounding them! Their swags and tents were getting wet, so they built a platform in a nearby windmill tower, about 3M off the ground, and set up camp up there to wait out the flood. It was too risky to return to the station, because they had to cross the Gascoyne to get there.

 

They sat it out on that windmill tower platform for THREE weeks! The water around them rose to top-of-fencepost height, and just stayed there for all that time. Dad said nearly every fencepost top they could see, was covered in scorpions, snakes or other creepy crawlies, all trying to survive the flood! He said there was water as far as the eye could see, from the top of the windmill tower.

 

Finally, the floodwaters started to recede, and one of the blokes decided he'd try to return to the station to let the owners know they were still alive, and not washed away, and to get some fresh tucker.

 

But he tried to swim the Gascoyne, which was still flowing well, and he ended up losing his horse (and a good saddle, too! - according to Dad) - and he nearly lost his own life, getting swept well downstream, before he could grab a tree and climb out.

The other blokes were surprised, when he walked back into camp, with no horse! So they had to wait several more days before they could get out and cross the Gascoyne safelys and return to the homestead.

 

Here's some of the storm reports from the end of March 1934, that show the vast area flooded by that cyclone. Only a fortnight before, the SW of W.A. received huge amounts of rain as well, from a different cyclonic event. Some places in W.A.'s wheatbelt received 5 inches (125mm) of rain in one day, around 9th-10th March 1934.

 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/67262087

 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/67264963

 

 

[facthunter]

 Weather events More often and More extreme is a change. SEA temps are rising, THAT WILL cause change. No Meteorologist would deny THAT. Nev

[old man emu]

I'm calling BS on that, Onetrack. I know for sure and for certain that there is no such thing a rain.

[facthunter]

At your Place Maybe. More change may change your situation but you Miss out on rain from every direction at present.. Nev

[facthunter]

Aren't you getting some NOW? 1900.  Nev

[old man emu]

Define "some".

 

A few drops at teh edge of a storm cell, but nothing to even trickle from the gutters.

[old man emu]

10/10 overcast this morning (Saturday). The cloudbase is too high to produce rain. 45% humidity at 26C. Wind calm with the occasion puff. 

[onetrack]

Katherine is suffering from major flooding, with the Katherine River expected to exceed 19.2M depth tonight - with more rain coming. This flood event is expected to exceed the 2006 flood river height, at 19M.

 

This photo was taken when the Katherine river was at 17.6M. At 19.2M the water is close to lapping the underside of the rail bridge. However, even at 19.2M, the river level is still well below the disastrous 1998 Katherine flood, where the Katherine River reached 20.4 metres and flooded the entire town, including the main street (the Stuart Hwy) with chest-deep floodwaters.

 

 

Here's a photo of the river level gauge.

 

 

This was the scene yesterday afternoon (6th Mar).

 

 

This is the current Flood Watch Area for the NT. It's interesting that the area extends well into W.A. and encompasses a sizeable area S and W of Kununnura.

 

 

Edited 9 hours ago by onetrack

[onetrack]

I just found out Katherine has a "River Cam", pointing at the old rail bridge. The river is lapping the underside of both road and rail bridges at present.

 

https://www.katherine.nt.gov.au/about-katherine/living-in-katherine/river-cam.aspx

 

 

Some of the lower Katherine suburbs are getting wet feet, right about now.

 

 

The main bridge is now closed to all traffic.

 

 

It appears that they have a levee bank with removable gates. The "dry side" of the gates doesn't look too dry, to me!

 

[facthunter]

It all helps. Katherine is a lot hotter than  Darwin. Used to fly into the Town strip at about Midnight with Bugga all runway guidance. Moved operations to RAAF Tyndall in 1969. Nev