Australian Weather

[Styx]

Nope, contrary to what the above news article suggests an increase risk of cyclones in Australian waters this season is not on the cards...simply no basis to this statement.  The  BOM in its season forecast issued yesterday says an average cyclone season based on neutral Pacific seasurface temperatures, :  11 cyclones or thereabouts in Australian territorial waters beginning Nov-April, with about a third of them likely to cross the coast. Based on the current situation my hunch suggests they'll come in a cluster well into the new year, but it's just a hunch.

 

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ahead/tc.shtml

[Upgrade]

Melbourne's typically schizophrenic spring continues. 

 

Yesterday  -  27 degrees at 4pm 

 

Today - 9 degrees at 4pm

 

Saturday we're due another 27 degree day! 

 

We had low humidity yesterday, gusty, bone dry northerly winds. 

 

Today it's been hailstorms and southwesterly thunderstorms! 

[Coast]

Raging wildfires in Australia leave Sydney shrouded in smoke

 

Hundreds of homes are thought to have been destroyed in the fires, with high temperatures and windy conditions helping the blazes spread. Authorities in Australia say they fear hundreds of properties may have been destroyed as wildfires raged across New South Wales, with smoke and ashes leaving Sydney shrouded in smoke. There are about 100 fires burning across the state, with 40 of them not contained, according to local media.

 

It's believed up to 30 properties have been lost in the Blue Mountains town of Springwood. Authorities have warned of serious threat to life across the state as a total fire ban remains in place for several areas with temperatures forecast to reach 34C (93.2F), according to local media. State Premier Barry O'Farrell said hot, dry conditions and strong winds have made it difficult for firefighters to control the blazes.

"We are unclear yet as to how many properties have been lost. But it's suspected that by the time we finish counting, it'll at least be in the hundreds," Mr O'Farrell told reporters. "The fact is that today's conditions, both the hot, dry conditions but also the wind conditions, have contributed to the difficulties faced by fire fighters and communities on the ground," he added. The New South Wales Rural Fire Service said it is the most serious wildfire emergency they have seen in years.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/10385481/Raging-wildfires-in-Australia-leave-Sydney-shrouded-in-smoke.html

 

http://youtu.be/fdIJ7uSKERM

 

http://youtu.be/ct4Ie1G0qOo

Edited October 17, 2013 by Coast

[Summer Sun]

How is the weather affecting New South Wales bush fires?

 

Authorities in New South Wales have said the bush fires in the region are creating the most dangerous conditions in 40 years. The warmest winter on record followed by the hottest September on record and half the normal amount of rainfall for spring has left the land tinder-dry. Peter Gibbs explains how the weather is making the situation so difficult.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24603115

[Coast]

 

A state of emergency has been declared in New South Wales as Australian firefighters battle bushfires that have already destroyed more than 200 homes. The announcement comes as conditions look set to deteriorate with soaring temperatures and strong winds expected to fan the flames in the coming days. The Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, has been the worst-hit region with some fires still raging out of control.

 

State officials say they are the most dangerous conditions in 40 years. New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell said the declaration would give emergency services additional powers over the next 30 days. These could include cutting gas and power supplies if needed and ordering mandatory evacuations. "We're planning for the worst but hoping for the best," he said. One man has died - possibly of a heart attack - while trying to protect his home. Hundreds of people have been left homeless by the bushfires.

One firefighter, 24-year-old Tim Boxwell, said he had lost his own home in Winmalee, on the eastern edge of the Blue Mountains, to the fire while he was on duty."I'd been standing watching other people's houses burn and the emotion from that was bad enough. To be hit with your own house being lost was a shock as well," he told BBC's Newshour.

 

'Unparalleled risk'

Officials have warned that the three main bushfires - two in the Blue Mountains and one near the town of Lithgow - could become one huge fire in the coming days, possibly threatening Sydney. A fire service spokesman said: "We can understand the magnitude of that as it would then creep into the bottom end of Sydney. It's certainly something that we're very concerned about."

The foot of the Blue Mountains lies just across the Nepean River from the suburbs of Sydney. Some embers jumped its banks last Thursday, starting a fire at Castlereagh near Penrith. After several cooler days, forecasters are predicting the return of unseasonably hot weather - with temperatures reaching 30C (86F) and higher. The heat wave would probably peak on Wednesday, warned Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons, but there would be little relief in the intervening period. "We've got what would be unparalleled in terms of risk and exposure to the Blue Mountains throughout this week. If you are to draw a parallel, and it's always dangerous to draw a parallel, at best you'd be going back to time periods in the late 60s. "The reality is, however, these conditions that we're looking at are a whole new ball game and in a league of their own," the commissioner said.

 

Mr O'Farrell said crews had carried out controlled burn operations overnight to strengthen buffer zones around the major fires.

An emergency warning was issued for the Blue Mountains village of Bell on Sunday morning. Residents were urged to evacuate or to take shelter "in a solid structure when the fire front arrives" Villagers in Mount Wilson and Mount Irvine, meanwhile, were ordered to stay in their homes after fire cut off access roads. Residents of nearby Bilpin were warned that if they did not evacuate, they could be isolated without power for several days.Assistant police commissioner Alan Clarke said mandatory evacuation orders would be enforced in some areas, describing the risk as "far more extreme" than in past fires. "At the end of the day we hope we have buildings standing, but if we don't have buildings standing we don't want bodies in them," he said.

 

'Firebugs' monitored

More than 37,000 hectares (91,400 acres) have already been ravaged by fire in the state in the past several days. Officials say that 15 blazes remain out of control. Smoke and ash from the bushfires have blanketed the Sydney skyline. Australia's military is currently investigating whether a training exercise using explosives may have started one of the fires. The exercise took place at a base near the town of Lithgow in the Blue Mountains region on Wednesday. In the past, many such fires have turned out to have been started deliberately, and police say they are monitoring dozens of "firebugs" - people with a history of committing arson, the BBC's Jon Donnison reports from Sydney.

 

Our correspondent says the blazes have come unusually early in the season and follow Australia's hottest year on record.

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24599925

 

[SomeLikeItHot]

Inferno expected to generate abnormal, high-altitude cloudDateOctober 22, 2013

 

Nicky PhillipsScience ReporterView more articles from Nicky Phillips 

 A bizarre weather phenomenon known as a fire cloud is likely to form over the fire raging between Lithgow and Bilpin if weather conditions deteriorate from Tuesday, as predicted, say fire analysts.The unique weather phenomenon - also called a pyrocumulus - occurs when a large fire is coupled with an unstable atmosphere.Rural Fire Service spokeswoman Natalie Sanders said the State Mine fire, which stretches across more than 42,000 hectares, had generated a pyrocumulus last Thursday and similar, unstable conditions were forecast for Wednesday.''If these fires are still going strong, there's a potential for that to happen again,'' she said.AdvertisementAndrew Sullivan, a leading bushfire behaviour researcher with the CSIRO, said the phenomenon required a fire generating a significant amount of heat.As it burned, the hot air it released would rise as a column into the atmosphere. As air moved upwards, it was quickly replaced by cooler air, a process that produced a convection column.In very large bushfires, these hot-air columns could be ''enormous'' and rise high into the atmosphere carrying a large amount of water vapour - one of the main combustion products of fire.An unstable atmosphere meant that the column could rise higher and higher into the atmosphere, where the temperature was cool enough for the water vapour to condense into a pyrocumulus cloud, said Dr Sullivan, a senior research scientist.''It's a cloud formed by the presence of the fire,'' he said.While the clouds typically did not contain enough water to rain and extinguish the fire, under certain conditions they could generate lightning.''In some cases, the lightning has hit the ground downwind of the fire and started new fire,'' he said.For a large convection column to form, a significant amount of heat needed to be released from the fire, a process that was related to the amount and rate the fire burned through fuel.While extensive fires with large convection columns could generate strong winds, they did not change the behaviour or direction of the fire, Dr Sullivan said.''There is this confusion [where] people think a fire has gotten so big that it's created its own weather and it can do whatever it wants,'' he said. ''Well, it doesn't.''A fire will still follow the laws of physics and move in the direction the prevailing wind is driving it.''But, under certain circumstances, fires could generate vortices, or fire tornadoes, with very high wind speeds that could cause significant damage.Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/inferno-expected-to-generate-abnormal-highaltitude-cloud-20131021-2vx6d.html#ixzz2iMhzrsP0

[SomeLikeItHot]

An interesting piece on Fire Tornados.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3774941.htm

[Coast]

The weather is against them:

 

 

Australian firefighters battle weather in worst bushfires for 45 years

Hot and gusty winds will persist for at least another 48 hours, hampering efforts to control huge fires in New South Wales

 

Firefighters face at least another 48 hours of unhelpful weather conditions as they battle New South Wales's worst bushfires in 45 years, the fire service has warned. By Monday evening in Australia, there were still more than 60 fires raging, 14 of them described as out of control. The NSW rural fire service (RFS) fears that the State Mine blaze – the only one currently designated an emergency-level blaze – will merge with another in Mount Victoria on the western edge of the Blue Mountains to form a massive fire. A state emergency, declared by the NSW premier, Barry O'Farrell, on Saturday remains in place.

 

Wednesday likely to see extreme fire warnings in Sydney, with smoke haze already affecting the state capital. There have been delays at the airport and warnings that people should avoid breathing in the poor air by staying inside and not taking part in rigorous outdoor activity. Andrew Scipione, NSW police commissioner, said all five arrests in connection with the fires had been of young people, a trend he described as "disturbing". "The message I continue to send to parents is this: 'Look after your children, understand where they are if you can, know who they're with, know what they're doing'," he said.

 

An 11-year-old boy has been charged over two fires, one of which began in Heatherbrae in the Hunter region of the state and consumed several buildings and charred more than 5,000 hectares of land. A 15-year-old boy has been arrested in relation to the same fire and is likely to be charged, said Scipione. A 14-year-old has been charged with lighting a fire near a tennis club near Rutherford, also in the Hunter region. Fears that a fire in Springwood could merge with the State Mine blaze in the Blue Mountains half an hour's drive from Sydney have receded thanks to backburning in Springwood. However, challenging conditions in the shape of gusty winds and unseasonably high temperatures, which experts say have contributed to the early start of the bushfire season, mean firefighters still have plenty of work ahead of them.

 

Shane Fitzsimmons, the fire service commissioner, said: "The weather situation continues to firm up as being problematic over the next 48 hours with a continuance of similar conditions to today, albeit a marginal reduction of temperatures for tomorrow, before we see wind strengths dominate much of the fire-affected areas." The "firies" working day and night to contain the bushfires have been lauded as heroes for their efforts. An image posted on the Newcastle Herald's Facebook page showing two firefighters, brothers Joshua and Matthew Jones-Power, taking a nap by the side of the road, in between shifts battling nearby blazes, has been viewed more than 3.7m times, "liked" by more than 100,000 people and attracted more than 4,500 messages of support for the fire service. The bushfires have destroyed more than 370 square kilometres of land and razed more than 200 homes, with both figures expected to rise. The insurance bill from the disaster is estimated at A$94m (£56m) with 855 claims made, the Insurance Council of Australia told Australian Associated Press.

 

The country's defence ministry is investigating whether it may have played a role in the State Mine fire, near Lithgow, which began in a valley where the army carried out explosive ordnance training last Wednesday

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/21/australian-firefighters-fires-weather-battle

[Styx]

Danger day in New South Wales today ( Wednesday ) with today's 'heat peak' expected to be the last for a while: 35C for Sydney ( 12 above average ), 10% humidities and wind gusts expected to exceed 100kmhr/62miles. At 10am AEST it is 28.8C. Fears of fire fronts merging to create an uncontrollable 'mega-fire'. The authorities have made it preety clear: there will be property losses today, and lives lost if warnings to evacuate aren't heeded.

 

Fingers crossed everyone in harms way will leave this morning. 

A good source of up to the minute information: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-bushfires-live-updates-october-23-20131023-2vzs8.html

[Styx]

Fire expert Professor David Bowman from Uni of Tasmania talks about the unparalleled bushfire conditions in Australia in this television news program interview. Not so sure whether it is viewable overseas - but here's the link to it anyway!

 

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3873911.htm

[Coast]

Danger day in New South Wales today ( Wednesday ) with today's 'heat peak' expected to be the last for a while: 35C for Sydney ( 12 above average ), 10% humidities and wind gusts expected to exceed 100kmhr/62miles. At 10am AEST it is 28.8C. Fears of fire fronts merging to create an uncontrollable 'mega-fire'. The authorities have made it preety clear: there will be property losses today, and lives lost if warnings to evacuate aren't heeded.

 

UK media reporting as follows:

 

Australian bush fires: thousands told to evacuate homes as conditions worsen

 

New South Wales hit by worst conditions of bush fire crisis so far amid soaring temperatures and high winds

 

Thousands of Australians were urged to evacuate their homes on Wednesday as dry winds threatened to fan a firestorm in mountainous bushland around Sydney, where firefighters battled to control blazes which have been raging for a week. More than 200 homes have been destroyed in New South Wales (NSW) state since last Thursday, when bushfires tore through Sydney’s outskirts, razing entire streets. One man died from a heart attack while trying to save his home. Wednesday’s fire conditions were shaping up as the worst so far, prompting authorities to warn of more property losses and advise residents of the Blue Mountains west of Sydney to abandon their homes.

 

“If you don’t have a plan, let me give you one,†NSW Emergency Minister Michael Gallacher said. “Get into the car, drive down to the city metropolitan area and let the firefighters do what they can do to protect the community, should this turn for the worse.†Temperatures in the Blue Mountains, a popular weekend getaway for Sydneysiders, are expected to reach up to 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). In Sydney itself they could hit 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit).

 

There were 59 fires burning across the state on Wednesday, with 19 out of control, according to the RFS. Over 2,000 firefighters were battling the blazes across a vast area, backed by 95 helicopters and reinforcements from other states. Hot, dry winds gusting up to 50mph forced water bombing helicopters to suspend operations just as the danger reached its peak on Wednesday afternoon. Light rain overnight had hampered efforts to back-burn and create fire-breaks. “We are entering what is typically the hottest and driest period of any given day,†Rural Fire Service (RFS) Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said.

 

“The temperatures are climbing and are expected to climb and maintain their peak throughout the coming hours. The worse of the weather is still to come.†Authorities ordered all schools in the Blue Mountains to be closed, evacuated nursing homes and advised people living in the area to leave before conditions deteriorated. “It’s very quiet up here. A lot of people we know have already left to stay with families down in western Sydney,†Blue Mountains resident Rebecca Southern told Reuters by telephone.

 

The Blue Mountains, whose foothills extend down to western Sydney suburbs like Penrith, are populated with a mix of farmers, small business owners and white-collar commuters who make the trip into the city every day. Their spectacular escarpments, dense eucalyptus forests and scattered towns are popular with tourists but a nightmare for firefighters. The NSW government has declared a state of emergency enabling it to order evacuations, hoping to avoid a repeat of the 2009 “Black Saturday†fires in Victoria state that killed 173 people and caused AUS$4 billion (£2.4 billion) worth of damage. The insurance council of Australia said claims of more than AUS$93 million (£55.6 million) were expected to grow as wildfires – stretching across 1,000 miles of Australia’s most populous state – ran their course.

 

Police have arrested several children suspected of starting a number of different fires. Other fires were sparked by power lines arcing in strong winds, according to the fire service. Record hot and dry weather across the continent and an early start to the fire season in the Southern Hemisphere spring have revived arguments about mankind’s impact on climate change. Climate scientists say Australia is one of the countries most at risk from global warming, with fires, floods and droughts that are already a feature of the continent likely to get worse.

 

But Prime Minister Tony Abbott has rejected any link between the Sydney fires and rising carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, a major Australian export. “Climate change is real and we should take strong action against it,†Abbott told local radio. “But these fires are certainly not a function of climate change, they are just a function of life in Australia.†Elected in September, Abbott plans to repeal the carbon tax installed by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard and replace it with a “Direct Action†scheme involving things like reforestation and financial incentives to business to cut pollution. UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres this week accused Abbott’s government of abandoning Australia’s commitment to emissions reductions.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/10398366/Australian-bush-fires-thousands-told-to-evacuate-homes-as-conditions-worsen.html

[Summer Sun]

29c still in Sydney at 19:22 local time 09:22 UK time

[SomeLikeItHot]

Sydney's red October brings unprecedented weather

 

 

 

A nice slider shot in the link  between the snow last october in the Blue Mountains and the burnt bush this year.

Edited October 23, 2013 by SomeLikeItHot

[Coast]

Australia fire crews face extreme weather in NSW

 

Up to 5mm (0.2in) of rain fell across fire grounds on Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning. "Whilst that is some welcome relief in terms of moderating the current fire behaviour, it has compromised considerably the ability to continue with the back-burning operations that were planned throughout the evening," Mr Fitzsimmons said.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24632130

 

They just can't win!

[Upgrade]

Certainly the big story has been the NSW fires, although just 450 miles away, Victoria is green and lush, and on days like today when it's been cool and wet you feel quite glad that we've had a fair amount of wet weather here and  consequently the fire risk is very low at the moment in the forests around Victoria.  

 

 

[chubbyfan]

whats happening to those bush fires..dropped off the news recent days..

 

did that bit of rain do the job or has there been more rain since..they were talking of converging fires to make a megafire

[Biggin]

.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Biggin

[Coast]

whats happening to those bush fires..dropped off the news recent days..

 

did that bit of rain do the job or has there been more rain since..they were talking of converging fires to make a megafire

 

Worst of it looks to be over for now, still some tragedy though:

 

Bushfires aftermath: water-bombing plane's crash site reached at last

 

High winds, rugged terrain and the continuing risk of fire hampered efforts to reach the dead pilot and wreckage

 

Crash investigators have reached the wreckage of a water-bombing aircraft in south-eastern New South Wales, six days after its pilot died while fighting bushfires. Seven other models of the same fixed-wing aircraft were grounded on Wednesday by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority as a precaution. David Black, 43, died when his Dromader aircraft crashed in Budawang national park, 40 kilometres west of Ulladulla, about 10am on Thursday.

 

A witness saw one of the plane's wings fall off before the aircraft plummeted. Fire risks and rough terrain meant investigators from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau found it difficult to reach the crash site but on Wednesday a team of four got there. "Rural fire service teams had completed clearing a helicopter landing site nearby. However, the site has not been accessible until today due to ongoing high winds," a bureau spokesman said. On the same day a Casa spokesman, Peter Gibson, announced that seven Dromaders had been grounded.

 

"It's a precaution to make sure there aren't any problems with the wings or other structures on the aircraft," he said. The aircraft were used for crop dusting in NSW and Queensland, Gibson said, and could be contracted for water bombing. In April the bureau released a report after investigations into three fatal incidents involving Dromader aircraft. On each occasion the aircraft were carrying increased weight and the bureau found associated safety risks, despite approval being granted for operation at takeoff weights of more than 4200kg. The report outlined operating limitations under higher loads and recommended increased awareness among pilots.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/30/water-bombing-plane-crash-site-reached-at-last

 

Australian bushfires fan global warming debate

 

 

Australia has been battling unseasonably bad bushfires for weeks. The flames have destroyed hundreds of homes - and have also intensified a political debate about whether there is a link with global warming. Australia's Blue Mountains get their name from the eucalyptus trees that coat their slopes. On a warm day the sun heats up the oils in the trees' vibrant green leaves. As those oils evaporate into the atmosphere it gives the range a shimmering blue hue.

 

For much of this week though the Blue Mountains were more a shade of grey, cloaked in smoke, the air acrid and woody. And of course there is no smoke without fire. These have been the most devastating bushfires New South Wales has seen in decades. Tens of thousands of hectares have been burned. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed - and they are still burning.

 

In the small community of Winmalee, an hour's drive from Sydney, I looked on as Chris Muller stood, head in hands, in front of what was left of her house. And what was left was pretty much nothing. A once-beautiful property looking out over the bush reduced to little more than rubble, twisted metal and ash. Many of the houses on the suburban street had suffered the same fate. Chris's daughter, picking through the debris, tried to cheer up her mother. "Look mum," she shouted, holding up a few metal spoons and an old blue coffee pot. "I guess we are all still here, that is the main thing," Chris said, before heading off to start again from scratch.

 

Of course, Australians are used to the threat from bushfires. And there have been much more deadly ones than these. More than 170 people were killed in 2009 in the "Black Saturday" fires in the state of Victoria. But this year the fires have come unusually early after unseasonably hot weather. It is still only spring here. The full heat of summer is months away. And according to Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, they follow the country's hottest year on record. It has given these fires a political edge. Environmentalists have referred to Australia as the Petri dish of climate change, a place where the global warming "experiment" is actuality being tested out in reality. Australia's new conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott has sometimes seemed reluctant to accept that view.

 

Mr Abbott, a volunteer firefighter himself who gave up his day job to man the hoses on occasion this week, once described the science behind human-induced climate change as "absolute crap". He's since refined that opinion and now accepts global warming is happening. But this week he was quick to dismiss comments from a senior United Nations official who had linked the fires to the changing climate. "She's talking through her hat," Mr Abbott said, saying that fire had always been part of the Australian experience. He listed a whole host of major fires across the country stretching back more than a century. His comments drew the ire of environmentalists. The former US vice president and climate change campaigner, Al Gore, said denying the link between this week's fires and global warming was like claiming smoking didn't cause lung cancer.

 

People like Gore, a Nobel laureate, are already dismayed that since coming to power last month, Mr Abbott has pledged to dismantle Australia's carbon tax. The tax introduced last year by the Labor government makes the country's biggest polluters pay for the amount of greenhouse gases they produce. Instead the prime minister favours what he calls "direct action", giving businesses financial incentives to adopt green technology if they choose to. Within days of taking office he shut down the country's Climate Commission, set up to compile scientific research into the issue. All this has put the prime minister at odds with environmentalists.

 

It is a divisive issue in Australia, but up in the Blue Mountains most people I spoke to this week tended to side with Mr Abbott. This year's fires were "all part of the cycle," Col McDonnell told me as he prepared to defend his farmhouse while thick white smoke billowed from the hillside behind him. He said fires like this had been going on throughout the ages and that it was just part of living in the bush. If the fire season continues as it has started, the heat of the argument over the causes is also likely to intensify.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24659402

[crikey]

Here is a link to our New south wales fires ..

http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/dsp_content.cfm?CAT_ID=683

 

 

The situation has improved but still some fires idling quietly, awaiting for some bad weather to flare them up again. Unfortunately many are started by humans

.In fact many reports of young minor teenagers starting many fires this spring..

Only a couple of fires started by electric power poles and lightning..

 

The weather in NSW this spring was dry and hot.. Very early fires..

 

In Victoria were l come from further south. We have been cool and damp.

In N/west WA some  near records for Fitzroy crossing this month.

 

Some signs of a possible wet season creeping in with some early troughing in the tropics..?  Lets see how she goes.

 

Don't forget Australia is a BIG Island., All types of weather

 

Tropical storms in Darwin this week and late out of season snow showers forecast for the southern Victorian alps next Sunday

..

 

 

.. 

Edited October 31, 2013 by crikey

[SomeLikeItHot]

Unfortunately many are started by humans.In fact many reports of young minor teenagers starting many fires this spring..Only a couple of fires started by electric power poles and lightning..

And the big one in the mountains (although it didn't do as much property damage as the one around winmalee/springwood) was started by the defense force doing live explosive work on a high fire danger day.Anyway very unseasonal. Usually Nov-Jan is the peak fire season in NSW.

[Styx]

Of course the ignition sources for the fires is kind of irrelevant in the bigger scheme of things as it was the intensity of the fires based on unparalleled weather conditions ( for many months ) that has seen so much early destruction. Fire ecologists rank it as historically significant with the fires taking on a peak summertime intensity, and this of course is backed up by the stats from the BOM... I don't know what those people in the Blue Mountains are on who told the BBC ( above ) that it is all part of the "natural cycle" unless of course we have a situation of 'taken out of context'. Perhaps the next El Nino summertime which is more condusive to bushfire conditions will be the tipping point where questions are no longer asked,  and there will  be an appropriate political reaction and action re global warming...extreme weather...carbon reduction. In the meantime its almost as if nothing happened in Sep/Oct and we wait and see what summer may have in stall for us.

Edited November 1, 2013 by Styx

[Styx]

Not as anomolously warm in October compared to September but still notably warmer than average.

It has been a long long time since Tasmania has been majoritavely coded white!

 

 

Nothing will now stop 2013 from being the hottest year on record:

 

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/

Edited November 2, 2013 by Styx

[Styx]

The rain is coming to New South Wales after a long wait...if the projected totals are realised the bushfires currently burning within containment borders should reduce to a smokey smoulder:

 

 

Meanwhile in Tasmania the combined development of low pressure over the eastern continent and high pressure anchored to the south west has dragged up a pool of cold air from the south...10.6C maximum in Hobart yesterday ( 8 below average ), and the snow is back!

 

Edited November 8, 2013 by Styx

[knocker]

Tropical Pacific remains ENSO-neutral

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/

[Coast]

The rain is coming to New South Wales after a long wait...if the projected totals are realised the bushfires currently burning within containment borders should reduce to a smokey smoulder:

 

 

A storm system bringing rain the past two days across eastern Australia has helped fire fighters to contain the wildfires for Queensland and New South Wales. Since Saturday night, Sydney received a total of 3.56 mm (0.14 of an inch) of rain. Even though this amount is still well below average for the first eleven days of November, this new rain is more than twice the amount that fell in the entire month of October.

 

The rain made a very small dent in the drought across eastern Australia. In the short term, the rain has helped contain some of the fires that were still burning in the area. Many fires spreading across the area were pronounced contained early on Sunday. This containment allowed Dreamworld, located north of Gold Coast and one of Australia's biggest theme parks, to re-open. The park was closed on Saturday when a fire flared up nearby and smoke began drifting in. The evacuation of guests and zoo animals was a precaution according to a spokeswoman for Dreamworld. However, the amusement park opened back up again on Sunday.

 

 

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/rain-fire-australia-sydney-dre/19830072