Wild weather continues to lash NSW
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
12 hours ago
- ABC News
Heavy rain and possible flooding on the way for much of New South Wales
Rain-weary residents across New South Wales are being warned to prepare for more wet weather with a complex system expected to hit the state from today. The system is predicted to bring heavy rain as far south as Jervis Bay up to the Queensland border. The heaviest falls are due Thursday morning, with isolated showers in some areas potentially reaching up to 120 millimetres. The Bureau of Meteorology said the exact location of the system was currently hard to predict. However, minor to moderate flooding is possible for the Mid North Coast, Northern Rivers, Northern Tablelands, North-West Slopes and Plains, parts of the Hunter and parts of Greater Sydney. Many of the areas identified at risk of flooding have been hit hard with heavy rainfall over recent months. SES Deputy Commissioner Debbie Platz said communities could see flooding as soon as tonight. "Depending on where this rain falls and how much of it falls, the flooding from this weather system is likely to commence overnight and tomorrow," she said. Deputy Commissioner Platz said water from previous rain events made flooding more likely. "This year we've seen significant weather events, flooding and damage," she says. "We know that our catchments are saturated." The weather bureau said the significant rain event was caused by three weather systems — a low-pressure system in inland NSW, a trough focusing on the state's northern coastline and a high-pressure system in the Tasman Sea. "What we have is a significant rain event," said BOM Manager of hazard preparedness said Steve Bernasconi. Ross Durham is a grain farmer in the small town of Mullaley, near Gunnedah. Just over two weeks ago, Gunnedah was hit with major flooding, with the Namoi River peaking at 8.51 metres. The SES now expects minor to moderate flooding in low-lying areas along the Namoi in the coming days. said farmers in those areas were worried about what heavy rain could mean for their crops. "There's still some water laying in some of the lower country," he said. "You can potentially have crop loss in that, there's no question about that." But he was hopeful the rain would not stick around for too long. "We'd rather the wet weather now than in harvest," he says. "Your crops need sunshine to keep progressing, so that's what we're hoping for." The weather system is expected to ease from Friday.
ABC News
13 hours ago
- ABC News
Wild and wet weather for Sydney, Brisbane and Perth heading into the weekend
Wet weather is headed for both sides of the country today, with parts of New South Wales and Queensland set to cop a drenching before the weekend. Meanwhile, after a band of storms rolled through Perth yesterday, Western Australia is in for another today. ABC News Breakfast weather presenter Nate Byrne says it's looking "pretty wild" on either end of the map. "We've got a bit going on on both sides of the country today," he says. Here's a quick wrap of what's happening with the weather. "We started to see this rain event for Queensland and New South Wales picking up through the day yesterday," Byrne said. Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) senior meteorologist Miriam Bradbury said the rain event was expected to bring much steadier, wide-reaching rain today. "We're looking at 30 to 50 millimetres across those inland parts of northern New South Wales, the northern slopes, Northern Tablelands, pushing across parts of the Darling Downs as well," Ms Bradbury told News Breakfast this morning. The BOM estimated that — taking into account yesterday's rain and whatever happens on Friday — some areas along the coast will get more than 100mm over the course of the rain event. The fact that the rain is continuing over a few days has the BOM wary, with flood watch warnings in place for parts of New South Wales. "We're not expecting massively high rainfall totals necessarily, although some areas will see some higher falls," Ms Bradbury said. "It's more about the fact this will be multiple days in a row, on top of soil that's already quite wet." Here's a look at Sydney's possible rainfall forecast for the next few days: That could mean as much as 110mm over the three days. Here's a look at Brisbane's possible rainfall forecast for the next few days: That could mean as much as 90mm over the three days. Sydneysiders will most likely have to wait until Saturday for a dry day. However, there's still a slight chance of a shower in the afternoon. People in Brisbane may want to put off hanging washing on the line for a few more days, with a medium chance of showers on Saturday and Sunday. There's only a slight chance of showers in Brisbane on Monday. A cold front pushed a band of thunderstorms through the bottom corner of Western Australia yesterday, prompting the BOM to put out a warning for damaging winds and heavy rainfall. And another round is coming today. This morning, the BOM put out a severe thunderstorm warning for the Gascoyne and Central West districts, forecasting heavy rainfall in those areas. And a large chunk of the state is set to cop a drenching today, with the BOM forecasting thunderstorms and showers from south of Coral Bay all the way across to Isaelite Bay. Most of the state can also expect a rather windy one today. The BOM estimated that — taking into account yesterday's rain and whatever happens tomorrow — areas around Perth, Bunbury and Geraldton could get about 50mm over the three days. And it looks like there's more storm activity on the way for the weekend. "Late in the weekend, yet another front coming to the west, that's really going to help bolster [rainfall] totals in WA's south west, some really decent falls there." Here's a look at Perth's possible rainfall forecast for the next few days: That could mean as much as 90mm over the three days. It's been wetter than usual for both Perth and Sydney. This year Perth had wetter-than-average rainfall totals in the winter months for the first time since 1996. That includes August — even though we haven't even reached the end of the month yet. It tipped over the August average yesterday during Perth's downpour. Meanwhile, Sydney has had its wettest August in 27 years. And while many people assume winter means rain, that's actually not the case in parts of New South Wales at this time of the year. "Late winter is normally one of the driest times of year for Sydney and the NSW coast," ABC meteorologist Tom Saunders said. "However, by late Monday, the Observatory Hill weather station had already collected around three times the monthly average of 80mm." So far, the station has recorded more than 260mm for the month. People holding out for sunny spring days will have to wait another few weeks. While northern Australia just has wet and dry seasons, much of Australia observes a meteorological season calendar, comprised of summer, autumn, winter and spring. This system sees a new season start on the first day of December, March, June and September. According to this calendar, winter goes from June 1 until August 31 — spring starts on September 1. Other countries observe the astronomical seasons, which see the seasons start mid-month.
News.com.au
14 hours ago
- News.com.au
Bush Summit: The deceptive green drought crisis gripping Australian farmers
Over the last year, Australia has lived up to its reputation as the land of drought and flooding rains. Natural disasters of all descriptions have wreaked havoc in the regions. While some winter rain has since eased the worst of dry conditions across the nation's south, the emergence of apparently lush paddocks is obscuring yet another crisis. Warren Brown reports. The town of Bethungra is renowned among railway tragics for its unique, heritage-listed 'Bethungra Spiral', a 1940s engineering marvel on the Melbourne-Sydney line that is precisely as described: a section of railway that allows passenger and freight trains to negotiate a steep gradient through an ingenious ascending spiral. But in recent times the New South Wales town — population 137 — has been in a spiral of a different kind as a long run of unfavourable weather has plunged the community headlong into a vicious drought – but not a drought as you would expect. Heading out to the merino property Grasmere, the countryside is ablaze with iridescent, verdant-green paddocks, no doubt bountiful with nutritious feed for the familiar merino sheep and black angus cattle populating the countryside. To the uninitiated, this lush vista surely suggests the region is reaping the benefits of a crackerjack season of ideal weather conditions – but nothing could be further from the truth. As it transpires, these sumptuous grassy fields unfolding before us are merely a thin, deceptive veneer of green icing covering a vast, nutritionless desert of inactive soil. This is one of the cruellest phenomena Australian farmers are forced to endure – when the paddock surface promises so much but the engine room, the soil beneath, is bone dry. It is what is known as a green drought. Green droughts don't herald catastrophe the way typical, outback droughts do with parched, cracked earth and sun-bleached cattle skulls. They are an insidious form of grief that, on the surface, suggests everything is fine when the truth is something entirely different. Light rain during the winter months will inevitably see some greenery arise, yet very often this comprises of mostly weeds which offer little to no nutritional value to livestock. The next option is for farmers is to pay a premium to import hay and grain to feed. Eric and Dianne McKenzie and their daughter Yvette have been battling the green drought for months at Grasmere, forced to plant oats to feed their livestock much later in the season – only now are there faint signs of greenery emerging from the soil. 'We should have a crop about this thick,' Eric tells me, indicating with his fingers the oats should be about 15cm tall, 'but we had to plant much later this year and it's only starting to come through now.' To an outsider, it's difficult to believe this farm is in drought. The ground squelches underfoot and the air is damp with mist. It's almost inconceivable that at the same the drought struck in April, farmers on the NSW far north coast were battling catastrophic floods. 'The grazing potential is not there,' Eric explains. 'It gets to the point where we'll just have to bring in grain or hay.' As if the grief of a green drought isn't enough, 84 year-old Eric has survived a rough few years, almost succumbing to Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a rare viral infection damaging the nervous system. Then while reading the local newspaper, he discovered plans for the new Inland Rail project which will run squarely through his 1200 hectare property. Eric and Dianne reluctantly sold their farm of 23 years to the railway consortium last October. Dr Richard Hayes, a merino sheep farmer and senior researcher at the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, has specialised in the phenomenon that is green drought. 'People drive past where a bushfire has been or see the impact of a typical drought and they understand what's gone on,' Dr Hayes says, 'but they'll have no idea of the impact of a green drought.' 'Everything is under so much stress … This year the autumn break came late resulting in low growing conditions, and so farmers missed the boat in pastoral growth. Paddocks then became grazed out, and in winter the days are short and cold meaning hardly anything grows.' But in a truly cruel twist, green drought can also create an alarming imbalance of minerals within barely growing vegetation consumed by starving stock, which in turn brings catastrophe for sheep and cattle. 'There's always a risk of metabolic disorder,' Dr Hayes explains, 'where an excess of potassium inhibits calcium and magnesium from which livestock can develop Milk Fever' – an affliction which can lead to an animal's loss of consciousness, coma and death. 'It's heartache for farmers. It's often too much to handle watching your stock die and then having to pick up the corpses of dead lambs – the reality is the mortality rate can be big.' In western Victoria, at sheep farmer Mal Nicholson's property in Concongella near Stawell, recent rain has softened the cracked soil and similarly helped some greenery to grow. But the worst is not over, not after the triple whammy of a vicious drought, the ensuing fires in the Grampians and the introduction of the Victorian government's wildly unpopular Emergency Services Levy. 'Last year we'd had well below average rainfall and by September the soil had completely dried out,' Mal recalls. 'With no moisture it weakens the soil and we realised pretty soon there'd be no more fuel in the tank – you could see the grassland curing and we knew pretty soon we'd be in trouble.' 'There are certain trigger points and the clock was ticking,' Mal adds, saying farmers need secure plans in place by certain dates. 'Knowing we were about to head into a fire season we sold off a lot of stock, about 900 sheep.' And then the fire storm hit, remembers Mal, the captain of Stawell's Country Fire Authority volunteer brigade. 'On dusk a storm came through the Grampians and you could see thousands of bolts of lightning – the wind was blowing in different directions and suddenly it turned to sh*t,' he says. 'People put just their farming on hold, jumped on the back of a truck and put the fire out.' 'There were two significant strikes that burned through 40,000 hectares – we had seven brigades, 17 strike teams and were working 14-hour shifts for over a month.' To come home to face the Allan government's Emergency Services Levy was the next blow, with the tax implemented from July 1 forcing landholders to fund local volunteer emergency services through increased council rates. 'No one is happy about it,' Mal says, incredulous at the scheme. 'While we've been out fighting fires we've had to leave our farms for weeks, and then come home to try to catch up.' While his initial tax of $15,000 has been reduced to $5000, he still has to find the money. 'Only 20c in the dollar comes back to the CFA,' Mal says, clearly unimpressed with the state government's handling of the situation. 'It's all about propping up the big black hole.'
