2019/2020 Catastrophic bushfires: 2022 Worst east coast floods in memory.

[beecee]

It seems like only yesterday that the East coast of Australia, faced one of the worst bushfire seasons in living memory, with hundreds of homes destroyed, whole towns wiped out,lives lost and billions of our native animals perishing.

Now we have the same east coast having our worst floods in living memory, with month's worth of rain falling in a single day...Roads interstate impassable,  and  whole towns flooded, by what are being called a once in a thousand year flood!

https://phys.org/news/2022-03-australia-tens-thousands.html

The couples' home floated fully intact for about a kilometre

While I am aware of extreme weather events around the world, when they hit close to home, one starts to wonder. We have 4 moths to go before our next general election, I hope that peopel are aware and concerned enough to vote out our present incompetent climate change denying governemnt, for our Labor party who promises to do much more in that regard.

[Genady]

“Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.”

IPCC issues ‘bleakest warning yet’ on impacts of climate breakdown | Climate crisis | The Guardian

[swansont]

7 hours ago, beecee said:

a once in a thousand year flood

These seem to be happening quite a bit lately.

As Inigo might say to those attaching that moniker, "I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means"

[beecee]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

These seem to be happening quite a bit lately.

As Inigo might say to those attaching that moniker, "I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means"

In 2011, we had catastrophic floods that were seen as one in a hundred year event: 11 years later we have these floods that are even worse according to the peak river levels. Some redefining needed with the influence of climate change methinks. 

The rainfall totals for this current event have been staggering to say the least.

From 9am Thursday to 9am Monday three stations recorded over a metre of rain:

- 1637mm at Mount Glorious, QLD - 1180mm at Pomona, QLD- 1094mm at Bracken Ridge 

Brisbane has absolutely smashed its three-day rainfall record with 677mm, by recording over 200mm each day for three days in a row

Before this week it had never even had two consecutive days over 200mm and had only ever recorded eight in total.


The mean annual rainfall for Brisbane is 1011.5mm and it recorded 741mm in just the four days from 9am Thursday and 9am Monday.


Speaking of records, Weatherzone is reporting Dunoon in NSW recorded the second-highest daily rainfall total in NSW when 775mm fell in just the 24 hours to 9am Monday.


If you are not sick of stats yet, Doon Doon in NSW picked up a whopping 1040mm of rain in just the 48 hours to 9am Tuesday. That is over a metre of rain in just two days.

https://www.farmonlineweather.com.au/news/how-unusual-is-all-this-rain-were-having-the-answer-very/536372

And as this weather event has moved south, today is Sydney's turn, not that El Nino has not already given us our wettest summer ever!

[hypervalent_iodine]

6 hours ago, beecee said:

In 2011, we had catastrophic floods that were seen as one in a hundred year event: 11 years later we have these floods that are even worse according to the peak river levels. Some redefining needed with the influence of climate change methinks. 

The rainfall totals for this current event have been staggering to say the least.

From 9am Thursday to 9am Monday three stations recorded over a metre of rain:

- 1637mm at Mount Glorious, QLD - 1180mm at Pomona, QLD- 1094mm at Bracken Ridge 

Brisbane has absolutely smashed its three-day rainfall record with 677mm, by recording over 200mm each day for three days in a row

Before this week it had never even had two consecutive days over 200mm and had only ever recorded eight in total.


The mean annual rainfall for Brisbane is 1011.5mm and it recorded 741mm in just the four days from 9am Thursday and 9am Monday.


Speaking of records, Weatherzone is reporting Dunoon in NSW recorded the second-highest daily rainfall total in NSW when 775mm fell in just the 24 hours to 9am Monday.


If you are not sick of stats yet, Doon Doon in NSW picked up a whopping 1040mm of rain in just the 48 hours to 9am Tuesday. That is over a metre of rain in just two days.

https://www.farmonlineweather.com.au/news/how-unusual-is-all-this-rain-were-having-the-answer-very/536372

And as this weather event has moved south, today is Sydney's turn, not that El Nino has not already given us our wettest summer ever!

I don’t want to detract from your main point too much, but I have lived in Brisbane through both. The 2011 ones were way worse, but also quite different. Those ones came after months of non-stop rain. They didn’t manage the dams properly and sent a tidal wave down the river when it got to the point where they had no option but to release water. The damage and flood levels were considerably higher in 2011. The house I lived in at the time was thankfully on a hill that became an island for a few days and we were without power for four days, but we were lucky. Even before this weekend there were properties that had not yet recovered from 2011, largely thanks to insurance companies who refused to pay out and people being forced into bankruptcy. These floods came quickly and surpassed predictions, which did mean that people that probably should have evacuated did not. There were a surprising number of deaths, but if I had to guess I’d say the suddenness of it all was at least partly to blame. Properties and areas that didn’t have good drainage suffered badly, but 2011 was still worse. 

[beecee]

7 hours ago, hypervalent_iodine said:

I don’t want to detract from your main point too much, but I have lived in Brisbane through both. The 2011 ones were way worse, but also quite different. 

Your point is actually spot on. My intentions in starting this thread was to highlight extreme weather events  happening far more often, and the climate change connection.. 

Yes, there is/was a difference. Plus the overall effect of this system, going beyond Brisbane makes it probably the worst. This system has moved down the coast, into NSW and flooded towns like Lismore and Grafton, and at this moment is battering Sydney and the south coast. 4 dead so far but it is expected to go higher.

[hypervalent_iodine]

6 hours ago, beecee said:

Your point is actually spot on. My intentions in starting this thread was to highlight extreme weather events  happening far more often, and the climate change connection.. 

Yes, there is/was a difference. Plus the overall effect of this system, going beyond Brisbane makes it probably the worst. This system has moved down the coast, into NSW and flooded towns like Lismore and Grafton, and at this moment is battering Sydney and the south coast. 4 dead so far but it is expected to go higher.

A point I wholeheartedly agree with. There is a lot of literature in the crisis management space that discusses this and treats the increase in frequency and severity due to climate change as a given. The way that plays out in policy is interesting. 

As a side note, the floods in 2011 didn’t just hit Brisbane either, they impacted roughly 75% of QLD all told. We won’t really be able to know how the damages and costs compare until it’s finished battering the NSW coast, but I would guess you are right that the net effect including NSW (especially Sydney) might tip the net cost over what happened in 2011. It also looks like we’re getting severe thunder storms and giant hail tomorrow up here, so fingers crossed we get through round 2 relatively in tact. 

[TheVat]

I've wondered if government funds would be better spent buying out people on low lying land than on dealing with disaster remediation, infrastructure repair, berms, etc.  I have had forehead slapping moments as I've watched such neighborhoods in the US furiously at work rebuilding neighborhoods that are just going to face the same nightmare all over again in a few years.  Both governments and private insurers need to find ways to discourage this idiocy.

[studiot]

44 minutes ago, TheVat said:

I've wondered if government funds would be better spent buying out people on low lying land than on dealing with disaster remediation, infrastructure repair, berms, etc.  I have had forehead slapping moments as I've watched such neighborhoods in the US furiously at work rebuilding neighborhoods that are just going to face the same nightmare all over again in a few years.  Both governments and private insurers need to find ways to discourage this idiocy.

Interesting idea +1 

But why stop at government buyout ?

Other bodies can also be involved, and are in the UK.

On the other hand in the UK, there has been a debate for a couple of decades now about the folly of the authorities, not just permitting, but actively encouraging development on flood plains.

I was told today that the storm surge up the river Medway reached 1.7 metres above the predicted storm surge, causing substantial damage and flooding in North Kent.
This would not have happened if the Thames Barrier has not been closed, so surge water that would normally have reached far up the Thames was prevented fro doing so and flooded the Medway area instead.

On the other hand, the Dutch authorities seem to manage things pretty well.

Finally, have your read the book The Attacking Ocean, by Professor Brian Fagan, on the historic follies of trying to hold back the floods ?

[beecee]

11 hours ago, hypervalent_iodine said:

As a side note, the floods in 2011 didn’t just hit Brisbane either, they impacted roughly 75% of QLD all told. We won’t really be able to know how the damages and costs compare until it’s finished battering the NSW coast, but I would guess you are right that the net effect including NSW (especially Sydney) might tip the net cost over what happened in 2011. It also looks like we’re getting severe thunder storms and giant hail tomorrow up here, so fingers crossed we get through round 2 relatively in tact. 

Things seem to have eased somewhat in Sydney and the South coast, but the BoM are warning that this system isn't finished with us yet. Whether it ends up worse then 2011, or not, we have had two record one in a 100 year flood events, in 11 years, and in between the disasterous bushfires 18 months ago. 

Besides climate change, the other big ticket aspect is the Insurance premiums that are way out of the abilities of most to pay. I'm speaking of 10's of thousands yearly premiums for businesses, and a $9000 yearly premium for a pensioner couple. There has to be a way to cushion such effects. I Need to give "TheVat's" idea some thought also. 

[Area54]

On 3/2/2022 at 3:53 PM, TheVat said:

I've wondered if government funds would be better spent buying out people on low lying land than on dealing with disaster remediation, infrastructure repair, berms, etc.  I have had forehead slapping moments as I've watched such neighborhoods in the US furiously at work rebuilding neighborhoods that are just going to face the same nightmare all over again in a few years.  Both governments and private insurers need to find ways to discourage this idiocy.

An excellent idea, but I would divert some of the funds to charging those who approved and promoted development in such areas for gross negligence and endagering the public wellbeing. You can't legislate against stupidity, but you can penalise it.

Then again, if one buys a property on a flood plain is the problem that one just didn't pay attention in geography class, or that one missed the sginificance of the word flood!

[beecee]

3 hours ago, Area54 said:

An excellent idea, but I would divert some of the funds to charging those who approved and promoted development in such areas for gross negligence and endagering the public wellbeing. You can't legislate against stupidity, but you can penalise it.

Then again, if one buys a property on a flood plain is the problem that one just didn't pay attention in geography class, or that one missed the sginificance of the word flood!

A nice article here that might help explain things. Certainly though, after what has transpired, there maybe now some action afoot......

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-13/curious-nc-lismore-built-on-a-floodplain/9252362

extract:

Lismore sits in a valley where a number of creeks and smaller rivers join the Wilsons River.

Gilbert Laurie is a descendant of Lismore's Widjabul people and the nearby Yaegl people.

"We used to call Lismore area Dundarimbah", Mr Laurie said.

"Dundarimbah means swampland in our language. So yeah they built Lismore on a swamp, which is a bit sad."

The first to settle on the banks of Wilsons River were squatters who travelled down from the New England tableland so that they could access a river to get their wool out to the coast.

The next wave were the cedar cutters who used rivers up and down the east coast of Australia to float their logs down to the boats to export the wood overseas.

Lismore is at the head of navigation on Wilsons River where 1,000-tonne ships could dock and turn around.

The shanty town of farmworkers and cedar-cutters quickly expanded.

Ted Trudgeon, Lismore museum coordinator and custodian, explained "there was a big flood in 1857 before the town really started to develop".

"The biggest flood of the time was in 1870, so everybody knew about the floods.

"They estimate that there were floods back in this period that were over 12 metres — but they remained and the town developed and grew."

Here's another article after the 2017 floods.......

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-19/how-lismore-has-adapted-to-life-on-a-flood-plain/8443098?nw=0&r=HtmlFragment

Aidan Ricketts lives in one of the lowest lying parts of North Lismore.

His home of 30 years sits on steel posts that let the water rush through rather than resist it.

"It doesn't go into the house, but I can get up to five metres underneath the house in a flood like the other day," he said.

"I always stay. I never feel unsafe."

Edited March 6, 2022 by beecee

[Ken Fabian]

The flooding in Lismore exceeded the previous highest flood level by so much that many people who believed themselves safe and prepared found they were not. Downtown Lismore (behind levees) expected the ground floors to be inundated but the next level up to be safe - so they shifted valuable goods as well as themselves up to there. And got badly caught out. Being up on stilts was not enough - and gave many people a false sense of security.

Between raised sea surface temperatures and raised air temperatures the severity of rainfall events is raised... when conditions suit rainfall. When ENSO is in la Nina phase Eastern Australia gets more air flow from the Pacific Ocean over land - in combination with that warming it isn't difficult to see why this would increase rainfall intensity. During El Nino phase the prevailing air flow is more often from Central Australia towards the coast - and whilst warmer air can take up more moisture, it also takes more water vapor content to reach the saturation needed to induce rain; it isn't difficult to see how that would lead to reduced rainfall.

Like sea level rise for The Netherlands with the existing propensity for inundation, being "a land of droughts and flooding rains" doesn't make greater extremes of droughts and floods for Australia less concerning. Quite the opposite. Like with "but the climate is always changing" the susceptibility of the global climate system to natural change makes it more susceptible to change and to reach new extremes from raised GHG's; it would take climate that doesn't change for it to not matter.

There isn't much doubt the current Australian government has protecting the fossil fuel industry from emissions reductions ambitions as higher priority than reducing emissions. The Minister for Energy and Emissions Reductions has been tireless on that front.

For non-Australians the Australian Prime Minister is bottom right, with the lump of coal he once brought to parliament to attempt to ridicule those who have been calling for Australia phasing down coal exploitation - "don't be afraid" -

 

Edited March 7, 2022 by Ken Fabian