Weather report from Australia

[Australian Cattleman]

Been a while since I've given everyone a report on the weather here in parts of Australia. Well up north in Queensland the banana and sugar cane crops and homes and businesses have been devastated by category 5 cyclone "Larry". The north west coast is about to be hit by another category 5 "Glenda" its less populated over there so has more of a chance to do less harm.
80% of Australia's banana crop has gone and a significant amount of cane. The bananas were only about two weeks off picking. There was no loss of life thanks in part to lessons learned from hurricane Katrina. The state was quick to declare a state of emergency whereby giving police powers to remove persons from their homes with force if need be. It worked.
Most Australians are common sense people,especially those out in the country,couldn't say the same for some city dwellers.
Our area could do with about 2/3 inches of rain to set us up for winter. Parts of our state are very dry and parts of the state to our north. Temperatures are starting to drop overnight,coolest so far has been 3 C but most mornings are around 10/12. Our days have been 23 to 25C so they are just nice to be outside doing work.
The garden is planted for winter,got some hay in the shed with some more to come in about a month.
Is it warming up in Canada and the US yet?
Colin

 

[RebelCritter]

I wonder if your cyclone season can be a sortof predictor for our hurricane season? Was your cyclone season busier than usual? above average? more severe? When does your season end? curious because hurricane season is approaching once again...

sorry to hear about the banana crops... I supppose price of bananas will go up? But good to hear folks are smart and got out of the way no death.

It is warm here, 80s, but we are horribly dry! Dryest March on record! Fires everyday somewhere... I will pray for you to get rain if you pray for us to get some.

 

[Australian Cattleman]

thanks RC, we had nice rain yesterday afternoon 1/2 inch and it has rained nicely overnight and is still raining,give you an amount when I get outside,still a little dark and rumbling at the minute. The cyclone season has been fairly active along the north west coast (Indian Ocean) but very quiet on the north east coast,only the one severe one. There was a second one following behind the severe one all the damage it did was create heavy seas along our east coast to the delight of our surfers. It swung away and headed towards Norfolk Island which is a 1,000 plus kilometres off our state's coast. We seldom have any problem with cyclones as we are too far south,we get a fair bit of wind off tropical depressions that hover off the coast to our east. In a straight line we are about 120 miles or so from the coast up in the mountains at 3,000 feet.
The cyclone season usually extends from just before christmas to mid April. The price of bananas jumped up as soon as the media said the prices would rise. They have apparently gone from $2.50 up to $6+ a kilogram. I hate profiterring by retailers. The shortage will help our state's banana growers who produce the 20% left. The greatest concern by those that have lost their crops is that our government will allow the importation of bananas from the Phillippines. The northern banana growers had a disease called black sigatoka in their crops about 4/5 years ago and beat it. No one knows how it got here. Australia prides itself in it's disease free status. It always worries me the illegal immigrants that try and sneak into our country from Indonesia what they might have on them.
Enough rambling and raving.
Colin

 

[chrisy]

It seems bad world wide, with illegal immigrants bringing things in to Countries, we here in the UK had eradicated a lot of deceases, and being an Island we were clear for ages now a lot of the old ones are back. I know world travel can bring some back but not that many.
As for weather we are coming into spring now and the change is remarkable, we have had a very dry 14 months only light rain, and a hose pipe ban is on in the southern end of the country, even London. they are trying to see if they can ship water down from the North of the country, and to try to extact the salt from sea water, but that is coming out to be quite costly as it uses a lot of fuel, which is also a strain on the enviroment. anyway enough from me. Chrisy

 

[dj]

chrisy I know it should be as clear as the light of day.
If you would please. What is a hose pipe ban?

 

[chrisy]

chrisy I know it should be as clear as the light of day.
If you would please. What is a hose pipe ban?

we can't use the hose to water the gardens or wash cars, it is considered a waste of water. we are asked to use the water from the bath (tub) to water the garden, etc. hope this clears things up.

 

[dj]

duh
here they call it water rationing only the they don't encourage
the use of gray water