Friends back home near Ballarat tell me there has been a second 'round ' of flooding in the district & more rain on the way. They say the amount of rain & extent of flooding across central Victoria is unprecedented. However it is nothing compared to further north on the Murray, & up the eastern seaboard.

Heading toward our 5th wet season in the tropics it's hard not to see 'traditional' weather patterns as changing. There have been large falls in the north associated with the monsoon troughs & with cyclones, since we have been up here, but on the whole far more rain has fallen in places where it has been traditionally dry or drier, than the tropics.

We have been lucky to have been in the north, experiencing average to less than average wet season totals over the past four Wets. We wonder if we are wet season 'jinxes' with the heaviest falls being wherever we are not. When in the NW Kimberley we had a very low rainfall Wet, whilst over in the Daintree it was immense. When in the Daintree it was moderate but Broome copped a lot. Whilst out west of Mareeba it was a normal season, but not far south of us the photos of huge numbers of drowned cattle on stations was distressing. Up here on the Cape last year there were areas of high falls but they were not widespread & the highest falls very late in the season at the end of May & not monsoonal.

I do wonder whether rather than the rainfall down south being an aberration, we are seeing longer term changes where the term Wet Season will no longer be the province of the tropical top end, but instead of Australia more generally. 3 La Nina's in a row cannot help but make me wonder whether global warming/climate change is making La Nina the norm & that what we are seeing is only going to get worse.

I hope not.

But I know weather patterns have changed over the past 30 years, or at least I know that for where we lived - high up in the Strzelecki Ranges in Gippsland Vic. Our neighbour & his father before him had kept rainfall records stretching back 60 odd years. We kept them for the 2 decades + we were there. Annual rainfall totals varied between around 850mm up to around 1400mm with 1200mm to 1300mm being the norm. Those figures still remain similar but over the twenty plus years we were there the pattern of delivery changed. Instead of little & often it increasingly came in larger 'dumps' - not much good for a small farm where stock depended upon multiple small hilltop dams dependent upon run off to fill them. Stocking rates dropped as the weather pattern changed, halving over the time we lived there.

The tropics have evolved with the Wet, & generally flooding is an inconvenience more than a disaster, in part due to natural topography, in part to it being warmer & in part due to less population/& infrastructure.

Being cold, wet & having whole towns inundated as so many are dealing with in the south must be absolutely miserable & I feel for those affected. It is almost bizarre that those who live up here are looking forward to what is being forecast as a 'big' wet this coming season.

Hune Dam now has 12 gates open, apparently La Nina did not figure in their calculations. Thanks to a friend from F B

The Murray River is slowly rising here down south, the levels are not expected to be anywhere near as bad as Echuca, but my little patch by the river where my dinghy used to sit on bone dry grass is now under a foot of water (have put dingy up out the way) and I'm wondering when/if our access road is going to go under. And here comes the rain again as I write this and the ground is so wet the rain will just run straight into the river to add to the volume.

Although our home will be safe because it's on higher ground, higher than the 1956 flood level, this is my 1st experience of seeing levels this high and waiting for the full effect of up stream water arrival is still disconcerting.

We are just returning home after a month or so along the east coast from Brissy to Sydney.

Perhaps only two or three wet days but some overnight showers.  Cloudy days of course but all in all quite good weather.

This morning at Woolgoolga Lakeside it is bright & sunny with a mild breeze.

Has anyone spotted the 'possible' cyclone forming up over land(inner Eastern Kimberley) around about this coming Friday morning ?
Plus, another possible cyclone could form around the eastern side of Carpentaria.
La Nina pattern is sending a crap load of the moist stuff down from the Tomor Sea - nothing unusual about that this time of year. What is a bit different and interesting is the 'potential' for a cyclone to form over The Kimberley....., at the present it's looks like it 'could' intensify and head West by South West, crossing the top of The Great Sandy Desert before finally crossing onto the Indian Ocean just below Broome. If it actually comes to pass, maybe they should Wrongway Willy or similar.
Check out BOMs 7 day Interactive maps.

Hot - central Victoria.

Brissy at 10.56 EST  ....   26 & mostly sunny ..  nice breeze  

Could do with a little rain  .. water tanks (for garden only) about 1/2 full.

129mm up to 7am and still raining at 8.53, but 20 degrees. After 36 degrees on Saturday

finish with 143 mm for the 24 hours

-- Edited by Craig1 on Monday 30th of January 2023 08:54:18 AM

Fog this morning, nice clear Autumn days.

Absolutely beautiful here in Brissy today.

A typical Autumn day with current temp 26 and 100% blue sky.

It will be just slightly cooler tonight.  Jeans & slippers replacing shorts & thongs.

I was booked for a couple of weeks at Tallebudgera Creek CP but had to delay for 2 weeks due to earth works in progress.

We expect more of this weather but perhaps a few degrees cooler.   Might help the winter whiting catch as the water cools just a bit.

Red sky in the morning........Sailors warning.

Storm coming...

Craig1 wrote:

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Blessed wintery, 15 degrees, showers, little wind, but 10 million plane tree leaves.

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 Sounds like my Street. I've spent the last three days raking and shredding up Plane Tree leaves - I'm on a curve in the road so they pile up a meter high around the house - Council that planted them deserve pillorying. 

We were going to move to Toodyay a few years ago..........hot as hades today !!!