I thought it was interesting in view of the NSW north coast floods in the headlines lately to compare the current month Rainfall percentages map to a few other months of notable rainfall. Readers can very easily change the BoM map specs to view other months or parameters. I used the Kempsey (Wide Street) 59017 monthly rainfall data as a guide and made maps for – Feb 1929 which showed a larger area plus 400% on the NSW North Coast. June 1967 showed a much larger area as did June 1950. There would be many more flood events but these caught my eye. If any readers can obtain current month outflows to sea data for the NSW North Coast – and or historic monthly flows to sea data please pass on. For the Sydney region Nov 1961 is mentioned as the worst flood in living memory. June 1950, Feb 1956 and Apr 1988 maps are worth a look. June 1867 is reported as the worst ever – way higher than this month – and looking at monthly rain data I see Parramatta 66046 records over 500mm in May 1889 and March 1892 – too early for maps.
It does seem out of touch that in this day and age we still have so many Sydney houses flood prone.
BoM rainfall maps NSW north coast floods
BoM rain Outlook stellar fail for March
Checkout the rainfall Outlook for March and compare with month to date rainfall percentages for Australia and you will see the small areas on the east coast where BoM can claim success. Set against the vast areas of heavy March rainfall elsewhere across wide brown land where BoM Outlook has had stellar failure.
Below here actual rainfall percentages to the 23rd March
Perspective around the WA Labor election triumph
Since Premier McGowan’s big election win 4 years ago the Liberals won the Darling Range byelection in June 2018.
Then in the May 2019 Federal Election the Liberals(or + LNP Coalition) did well in WA winning 11 seats to 5 for Labor. Bushfires dominated our media in 2019 and into Jan 2020.
It is only since the Wuhan Flu, cruise-ships publicity, formation of the extra-constitutional disastrous National Cabinet and virus safety issues became prominent about a year ago the Premier McGowan’s popularity started to boom resulting in yesterdays State Election triumph for Labor and wipeout for the Liberals.
In May China opened a trade war with Australia putting a tariff amounting to a ban on our barley exports. Since then a variety of our other commodities have been targeted by the CCP and our responses have generally been that our Minister whines that his phone calls to Beijing are not answered.
In the midst of all this harmfull background it was unfortunate that WA secession memories were set loose in 2020 and as I write Chinese Govt ships are poking around off the NW WA coast and a Chinese resources company has been granted a mining “lease” in Cockatoo Sound which has a “port” from past mining operations. The Canberra Gov says it is near a “military training ground”.
I expect there will be many CCP agents in WA influencing whoever well connected Labor people with the remotest links to the Govt. (Note – posted in haste – to be added to later – if anybody has WA poll results timeline going back into 2019 I would appreciate link or screen save pic – thanks)
Cool summer 2021 for wide brown land
Summer daytime temperatures across Australia were cooler than the average from 1910 even with the graph built from the BoM tweaked ACORN temperature series where the past has been cooled to fit IPCC dogmas. Checking out the summer Outlooks against the real world – the Minimum Temperature Outlook takes the prize for utter failure. How could BoM models predict such an extreme Outlook?
Ask me if you can not find something. Enjoy the way the BoM is promoting warming stories in the face of the cool summer. Ningaloo Nino: The climate phenomenon worrying scientists 1Mar21
Australia descends into farce
As we shambled into 2021 the PM seemed to be cruising towards an early election against a divided opposition and this week started with Gov news that “The Eagle has Landed” meaning the first batch of the Pfizer vaccine has arrived.
Now in less than a week we are a global spectacle. Starting with ongoing revelations about an alleged rape in the early hours of 23Mar2019 during a drunken escapade in the Parliament House office of the Defence Minister. How the pair of highly paid privileged staffers got through security on a weekend visibly affected by alcohol is yet to be fully explained. The PM claims he first learnt of this two year old saga of secrecy known by so many, only days ago and he has initiated inquiries and reviews amid widespread scepticism that he should have known earlier. Yesterday we had the Defence Minister blubbering in the Senate unable to answer questions.
I also saw news that the GovGeneral’s staff have been doing a “Privilege Walk” – one step forward if you catch a bus – one step backward if you drove your car. The expression – “you could not make this stuff up” comes to mind.
Then we have Facebook cancelling links to many Australian Gov www sites leading to many politicians hyperventilating. You would think the internet did not exist. FB & Google have never paid fair tax here and recently Gov has been trying to get them to pay media orgs for Oz news content that the digital giants make a mega-$motza from.
In the middle of this news breaks that a group of Nationals favour developing nuclear power and I heard of a surprising number of Liberals who want a move towards including nuclear in our energy mix.
While I favour nuclear power (and Australia having “the bomb”) I realise that Green, Labor, NIMBY, State Govs and Indigenous issues would likely stymie any moves towards nuclear power plants – the term “snowballs chance in hell” comes to mind.
Meanwhile our water bureaucrats are firmly anti-dam. Let’s see how our motormouth PM navigates ahead after last week.
“Choice” concerned about water efficiency labelling
I got this email from the consumer organization Choice. ( Do you look at water rating labels when buying a new dishwasher, washing machine or shower head?
Australia’s water efficiency labelling scheme requires many products to include a ‘water rating’ sticker that shows how efficiently they use water. The system is currently being reviewed by the government, so this is a crucial opportunity to keep companies honest and make it easier for you to choose water-efficient appliances.
I want the government to hear directly from consumers who use the scheme, so I’ve put this quick survey together to help shape what we ask the government to improve. Warwick, will you take a moment to share your thoughts?
Together, we can make sure Australia’s water efficiency labelling scheme remains an important tool to keep water-wasting products off the market. Share your thoughts to help improve the scheme now. Thanks for your support,)
My thoughts are that we should be considering the “anti-dam” realities of both State and Commonwealth public services and the negative effect of that on water policy and consumers. The failure over 30 years to augment major municipal water supply dams and the ludicrous squandering of $20Bn on unwanted seawater desalination has been an ongoing multi-Gov disaster.
2011 explanation CCP hostility to Australia
Last month I blogged – Timeline of CCP attacks on Australia from 2008
The 2011 book Energy Security 2.0 is available at Art of Victory as a 3.5Mb pdf (scroll down right hand side)
Chapter VII By Yossef Bodansky – is titled – Energy: the Driver of the Grand Strategy of the PRC
I have copied and pasted Ch VII below and will work through removing paste errors and “bolding” text that hits me as contributing to explaining/understanding our current issues with China. I might add a note or two myself bold inside brackets.
Energy: the Driver of the Grand Strategy of the PRC
By Yossef Bodansky
THE RISING ECONOMIC AND STRATEGIC power of the People’s Republic of China(PRC) is clearly the key dynamic of Indo-Pacific and Eurasian geopolitics for the coming decade, and the PRC’s focus on fossil fuels as an integral component and priority of this grand strategy will drive both energy markets and security issues for much of the world in the coming decade and more. In 2009-10, the PRC was at a crucial junction in its historic ascent as a global strategic power, an ascent which began meaningfully in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union some two decades earlier. There were two major milestones in the evolution of the PRC’s post-Cold War grand strategy. The first phase ensued from the analysis by the PRC’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the then-nascent US-led globalization, the shape of hi-tech wars as demonstrated in the US-led Operation Desert Storm against Iraq (1990-91), and the trauma of the PRC’s own Tiananmen Square confrontation (1989). Continue reading 2011 explanation CCP hostility to Australia
Australia Day thoughts
As we near the 26th of January some reflection is due and as one who supports keeping the date as it is I will try and set out some relevant points. Once those First Fleet ocean weary seamen and their human cargo began landing to establish what is now Sydney and New South Wales – a cosmic bell tolled for the end of the Stone Age across the wide brown great southern land. Few would have had much comprehension at the time that they were representatives from the origins of the Industrial Revolution that would go on to bring sky-rocketing social advances, democracy and untold 20th Century improvements in life expectancy and living standards for all. Explorers fanned out to explore the land and report back on agriculture & settlement prospects, logging their observations and contacts with sparse numbers of indigenous people in a process that was largely peaceful. In the subsequent several decades settlement took root at the sites of what are now the other State capitals. Today some who are against Australia Day refer to it as “Invasion Day” but IMHO that belittles the military effort and casualties in many invasions & counter defences throughout history. The taxpayer funded ABC has stepped up production of many TV and news programs against the notion of Australia Day – mainly after the Uluru Statement from mid 2017. Many green/left influenced urban Councils are against the idea of Australia Day and the Commonwealth Gov. is often lazy and ambivalent about marking out what it supports. In recent years the notion of a “Voice to Parliament” brought about by some yet to be defined constitutional change wrought by a referendum – comes to the fore on news at times. Usually it ignores the fact that indigenous parliamentarians make up plenty of “Voices already in Parliament” and obviously many non-indigenous voters are voting for them, which is great. One issue that you might expect we could all agree on is “closing the gap”. It appalls me that so many years keep passing, $Billions are spent and so little progress is made. I notice ABC News is now acknowledging that about 70% of the population favours keeping Australia Day as it is. I am surprised people are so resistant to the constant repetition of ersatz Stone Age ceremonies and street theatre portrayals. ABC says – “Australia Day debate is exhausting and data tells us it could last another generation”.
Fraser Island fire caused by “stupendous heatwave”
Our ABC reporting a bushfire expert. The Fraser Island fire burnt for ~60 days after a campfire on 14 Oct was not put out. ABC says quote [Bowman points to the K’gari-Fraser Island blaze, which burnt through nearly half the World Heritage-listed site before being contained by heavy rain.
The problem, he says, is “the lining up of the heatwaves and the flooding events”.
“Unfortunately, what happened in south-east Queensland is that there was this stupendous heatwave that enabled a fire to occur during a La Nina year,” he says, adding: “We wouldn’t have predicted such an intense fire”.
“And now, literally in days, it switched from an uncontrolled bushfire burning Fraser Island to this side of a category one cyclone in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales.
“So … we’re talking about really major extremes.”]
Hervey Bay Airport BoM# 40405 For saved image – looks the nearest reliable temperature data and no data looks remotely “stupendous” to me. The main lesson to take-away IMHO is that fire authorities should act quicker to put fires out – but there was an election in Queensland.
China walks on Australian toes in Torres Strait
My headline could have said “aided n abetted by PNG” – So PNG is allowing China to build a fishing port on Daru Island and deploy Sino fishing fleets there. Wow what a kick-in-the-face from PNG to Australia – and releasing the news at Christmas. Here is a map of various marine zones in Torres Strait from this source.
Click here for larger version. What a festival for fleets of lawyers this will be. Our so called diplomats should be recalled from hols and all relationships with PNG and Bouganville urgently reviewed.