Australia Burning....spare a thought....

On another forum there is an Australian member who was affected by the fires near Sydney. The road to his town had been cut by the fire and fuel and food were running out. He still had a good pantry supply.

At least now the road is open, but with speed restrictions over the fire damaged section.

They are a bit worried about the fires near the water "catchment"areas,contaminating the water supply

http://www.thebigwobble.org/2019/12/australia-is-bracing-for-its-highest.html

Australia's nightmare start to the summer is about to get worse, after the country's worst November in living memory suffering record-breaking wildfires, a crippling drought, toxic-smog and a long heatwave with temperatures above 40 deg C, (104 deg F) in many parts, (Australia was listed as the hottest place in the world on Thursday), another record is about to be broken. The Aussies are bracing themselves from a hot air mass which will fuel another devasting heatwave and it is expected to top Australia's current record high temperature of 50.7C, (123 deg F) at Oodnadatta in SA, that record was set on January 2, 1960.

According to ABC, Perth is enduring an unprecedented heatwave for December, with the city expected to hover close to 40 degrees Celsius for four consecutive days until Sunday. But the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has warned that as a cool change sweeps in on Monday, the blistering heat will travel interstate. "We're expecting some incredibly warm conditions as we head into next week, potentially record-breaking for a number of areas across southern Australia over the next seven days or so," BOM meteorologist Diana Eadie said. Ms Eadie said there was also a chance Australia could record its hottest day as a whole towards the end of the week. Be prepared for the heat Be prepared for the heat Heatwaves kill far more people than other natural disasters. ABC Emergency has a checklist of things you can do to be ready. "So when you combine all of the maximum temperatures recorded on any given day, the hottest on record was on the January 7 back in 2013, when we saw an average maximum of 40.3C," she said. "At this stage with these sorts of temperatures that we're forecasting it looks like we could break that record over a number of consecutive days towards the end of next week. "We will potentially see the hottest day on record across all of Australia."

Brisbane has recorded its highest 24-hour December rainfall total for 20 years after an overnight downpour of more than 100 millimetres, which mostly fell within a two-hour downpour period. Weatherzone meteorologist Kim Westcott said there were an estimated 3000 lightning strikes in the south-east Queensland overnight and she described the storms as "incredible". "A low-pressure trough triggered thunderstorms and some were severe, actually that is a bit of an understatement," Ms Westcott said. "Brisbane had more than 130 millimetres in under two hours. This is incredible, it's pretty unusual, I'm struggling to think when last time was that I saw this." Ms Westcott said the current Brisbane rain gauge records stretched back to 1999 and prior to Wednesday night, the highest 24-hour rainfall total for December was 84 millimetres in 2004. With more than 130 millimetres falling overnight, the 20-year record was smashed, reports the Brisbane Times

Massive wildfires are burning out of control on both East and Western Coasts.

DJ-Black surfaces (after fires) absorp heat-with the summer still coming the outlook for heat in Australia is dramatic. It will effect both cattle and plant-food production. Furthermore this heat-event will increase further global temperatures (with less trees to cool things down etc.)

9News: Out-of-control blaze threatens WA homes.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/wa-bushfires-out-of-control-blaze-threatens-homes-north-perth/ec921208-61c2-4bc1-b200-d36eb3dcc8e2

About 20/30 mins by car,

Embers can carry along way, especially when the sea breeze comes in, around 12/1pm,

Always a strong sea breeze in the arvo,on a hot day

The cold air rushes in to fill the void made by the hot air

rising off the land..... Which is very very hot..

They call it "The Fremantle Doctor" cools the place down,

it's just the new normal,we will all have to adapt.....

When it's hot I work outside in garden and go for long walks,i walk to the rail station (2.5kms) most mornings and walk home at night in all weathers,

I believe I need to condition my body just in case there's no Air conditioning ,that's one way I Prep

The poor sods in Australia. It was 46 degs there yesterday. That's so hot. According to our news, a heat wave is due to last there for the next 10 days with fire risk as catastrophic. Terrible.

By contrast, here in NZ, we are having unseasonably cold weather and today it's 18 degrees with on and off rain. Rain is forecast for Christmas day which we haven't had for years. The paddocks are still green, which again is unusual for late December.

We've heard that 40 more homes were lost last night. Poor people.

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Australia: My country is burning
13 hours ago

Fires are nothing new for Australia. But the blazes engulfing the country have now reached new dimensions and the country's leaders continue to dismiss climate change. For DW's Ben Fajzullin it's personal.
"From paradise to purgatory," an Aussie mate texted me, after his plane from Hobart dodged plumes of smoke flying into Sydney. I was also counting the fires on my flight to Brisbane. Every Australian state was burning.

The bushfires razed more than 4 million hectares (9.88 million acres), which is bigger than Belgium, in the last four months of 2019. They are set to burn for months more. Fire authorities called it unprecedented. The government refused to — and dismissed climate change.

Record heat melts roads

Scientists don't link the two directly. But they say a hotter, drier climate meant more frequent and intense blazes. Well, temperatures reached record highs of around 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) — melting roads in South Australia — and the drought was the worst on record. It's a deadly combination.

Several people perished. Over a thousand homes were destroyed. The mass evacuations of residents and tourists continued. Experts feared around half a billion dead animals, including a third of New South Wales' koalas.

The political disconnect was clear when Prime Minister Scott Morrison snuck off to Hawaii for an unannounced holiday, while the bushfires raged. His office tried to cover up what they insisted was "not a story." He was forced to issue an apology, after the details emerged.

However, the carnage continued. People were finding tiny dead flying foxes scattered along the New South Wales coast. Thousands of bats had abandoned their pups, exhausted and malnourished from traveling so far for food.

Climate change trivializers

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack was next to dismiss climate change, as the concerns of "raving inner-city lefties," arguing, "We've had fires in Australia since time began."

"Australia is politically dominated by climate change trivializers," according to Australian economist Steve Keen. "They deny the need for action on the argument that Australia contributes only 1.3% of global CO2 emissions."

"But they've always assumed that sea level rise would be the symptom, and Pacific island nations, who don't matter, the victims. Now with the bushfires, the populace is realizing that Australia may be the first victim."


01:50 mins.
DW NEWS | 30.12.2019
Fireworks controversy fires up tempers in Germany
NASA analysis showed Australia's bushfires generated over 250 million tons of carbon dioxide. That was close to half the country's annual CO2 emissions. Australia is one of the world's worst polluters per capita. It is the biggest net exporter of coal. And the government keeps opening new coal mines and gas fields.

Forward Communications managing director Greer Quinn said it was a global embarrassment: "Instead of arguing about climate change, the government needs to acknowledge humans haven't always done the best at protecting our planet."

"The only way to make a concerted change is if we do more to build our green capability in Australia. Right now, we have European and Asian companies installing large-scale solar farms in Australia. They'll sell our energy back to us in the future," according to Quinn.

A sickly, costly haze

Politicians only need look to the skies. Canberra was shrouded in smoke. Sydney even more so. SGS Economics estimated that the haze cost the nation's biggest city up to €30 million ($33.6 million) a day.

People called in sick. Doctors said the medical bills could go into the hundreds of millions. The smoke kept setting off fire alarms, sending workers outside to breathe in even more.

Firefighters battling bushfires around the town of Nowra in New South Wales, Australia
Ash clouds made their way to New Zealand, 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) away. Insurers received claims worth millions of euros. Locals complained that food prices were rising. Vintners were reeling. Some lost their entire harvests. Others said smoke could get into their grapes and make wine taste like the bottom of an ashtray. Australian wines are world-renowned.

The rural sector was hurting. Not just crops and livestock. The bushfires wiped out bookings for farm stays. Rural businesses were suffering. Money wasn't being spent. There were fears towns could shut down.

Scientists had said Australia was the most vulnerable continent to climate change — and yet a firefighter told me: "The Australian state and federal governments have been woefully ill-prepared for what they were warned would be catastrophic."

Up close and personal

London-based Keen has family in Sydney, which was on "catastrophic" alert for the first time. "This has turned suddenly personal." First thing in the morning, he checks the fire danger online. Keen said the fires were beyond anything he had ever experienced.

The firefighter I spoke to said: "These fires are so large and remote they can only be fought effectively from the air. Our current water bombing fleet is totally inadequate for the size and intensity of these fires and undoubtedly the fires coming."

Canberra needed a plan. Former Queensland fire commissioner Lee Johnson was one of about 30 fire chiefs lobbying the federal government to devise a bushfire strategy and fight climate change.

It shocked me to learn that my country didn't have a proper national plan! The states and territories have primary responsibility for responding to natural disasters.

But we've had fires in Australia since time began, as the deputy prime minister pointed out. I love my country. But I hate to see it burning. This was getting personal for me, too.

01:42 mins.
DW NEWS | 30.12.2019

AUSTRALIA AND OCEANIA | 23.12.2019
8 Australia fires: Prime minister defends climate policy after Greta Thunberg criticism

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I'm in the South Island in North Canterbury, and 3 days ago we awoke to a thick covering of smoke that subdued the sunlight. Everything looked yellow. We could smell wood smoke and the haze lasted about 2 and half days before the wind blew it to the North Island. It was very weird and we had the lights on in the house at 3 in the afternoon (and it's summer here so doesn't get dark until 10pm).

Poor, poor Australia.