[paraclete]

Hate to drag up something thats been dead for nearly a week....

But DAMN.......were in the hell did all that water come from? (yeah, rain).

SHould have been building a few ARKs if you had seen that coming.

Where did all that water come from? It's called a monsoon and northern Australia experiences a monsoon every year but for the last ten years we have had drought, courtesy of "global warming" and el nino. This year the monsoon is early, has moved south and we have el nina. El nina is said to be caused by the sea heating up, something that has been happening for a long time

Smoothy we didn't see it coming because the predicted el nina events have been weak in the last ten or fifty years but despite all the water it still hasn't reached the highest recorded levels yet so no need of arks. If you have seen the news you will have noted that Queesland builds houses like arks, they are built on stilts so the floods can flow under, people have been surviving floods there for a long time, but now some of the water will move south and add to the unheralded flood occurring much further south. Hey it is even happpening in Western Australia for the second time in months, but once again no one there, so no news coverage

[smoothy]

where did all that water come from? it's called a monsoon and northern Australia experiences a monsoon every year but for the last ten years we have had drought, courtesy of "global warming" and el nino. This year the monsoon is early, has moved south and we have el nina. el nina is said to be caused by the sea heating up, something that has been happening for a long time

Smoothy we didn't see it coming because the predicted el nina events have been weak in the last ten or fifty years but dispite all the water it still hasn't reached the highest recorded levels yet so no need of arks. If you have seen the news you will have noted that Queesland builds houses like arks, they are built on stilts so the floods can flow under, people have been surviving floods there for a long time, but now some of the water will move south and add to the unheralded flood occuring much further south. hey it is even happpening in Western Australia for the second time in months, but once again no one there, so no news coverage

Heck... even if it WAS predicted... that is so extensive I can't see how anything much could have been done. That's like 1/4 of Australia under water. Yeah I know much of it is uninhabited... but that's still a lot of people. And a historic evacuation had it been attempted.

I assume you have much of the same soil conditions that makes that sort of rain disastrous to south Texas... where shallow soil over bedrock prevents much from soaking in so it floods on the surface until it runs off.

Yeah, I saw that on the Stilts... you find that a lot in the Gulf and certain coastal areas in the USA. For the same reasons... works too, as long as the water doesn't get deeper than the stilts are tall. If it does you are screwed.

[paraclete]

Heck...even if it WAS predicted....that is so extensive I can't see how anything much could have been done. Thats like 1/4 of Austrailia under water. Yeah I know much of it is uninhabited...but thats still a lot of people.

I assume you have much of the same soil conditions that makes that sort of rain disasterous to south Texas....where shallow soil over bedrock prevents much from soaking in so it floods on the surface until it runs off.

Yeah, I saw that on the Stilts.....you find that a lot in the Gulf and certain coastal areas. For the same reasons....works too, as long as the water doesn't get deeper than the stilts are tall.

Yes it is extensive and the effect lasts a long time, like it takes months for the water to flow down some of the river systems. They say the river at Rockhampton will stay at flood level for many days. I don't know if 25% is a good figure, Queensland flooding represents about 10% and New South Wales maybe another 5% who knows how much WA represents. I can't comment about the soils, lot of clay, but we also have the Artesian basin we have no idea how much of this water has gone there.

Where I live we are now experiencing subtropical conditions with daily thunder stoms. This is because the inland is saturated and that effect will take some years to work through

[smoothy]

I guess the maps they have shown on the news here makes it look worse than it is. That's where I get the 25% number... because they have about 1/4 of the Australia map painted blue in the NE to represent the flooding.

I thought that area was reasonibly flat (compaired to the mountany parts of the USA anyway). And that's never good for getting floodwaters away fast.

[paraclete]

I guess the maps they have shown on the news here makes it look worse than it is. Thats where I get the 25% number....because they have about 1/4 of the austrailia map painted blue in the NE to represent the flooding.

I thought that area was reasonibly flat (compaired to the mountany parts of the USA anyway). and thats never good for getting floodwaters away fast.

Australia has two main drainage systems, the Murray/Darling which drains a very large part of the continent towards the south west of the Great Dividing Range and the second largest; the Fitzroy, which drains parts of central Queensland to the Pacific ocean. Much of the flooding is presently concentrated in the Fitzroy basin. There are no large lakes the water might drain into, excepting for Lake Eyre in Central Australia. However a very large part of Queensland west of the Range is subject to flooding presently, this would tend to confuse someone unfamiliar with the topography. Queensland represents 1.7 million sq kilometers of which 0.8 million is said to be flooded. Some 22 population centres are at risk. This is the start of the monsoon and much of northern Queensland can expect further localised flooding. The position is made worse because the Queensland flood waters will also inundate northern New South Wales on their way to the Southern Ocean. NSW already has it's own flood problems to deal with from December rains.

The land west of the range is relatively flat and as you say it takes a long time for the water to travel

This will give you a better picturehttp://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/qld/

[smoothy]

Thanks... sometimes the news oversimplifies things so much... they render the story useless for details.

I admit my knowledge of Austrailias topography is pretty limited to a number of moves filmed there and National Geographic shows. Not a very good representation I know. I've never been able to visit the country. (Wife monopolizes my vacations)

[paraclete]

Yes the movies tend to focus on a few clichés. We have mountains and plains, drought and flooding rains, beaches and seas and above all emptyness

[smoothy]

Yes the movies tend to focus on a few cliches. We have mountains and plains, drought and flooding rains, beaches and seas and above all emptyness

Yeah... I have head the interiour gets so little rain a year its effectively uninhabitible by humans, besides getting hot as hell. A lot like our much smaller death valley in that manner, except our death valley is the lowest point in the western hemishpere, 282 feeet below sea level. You are basically limited to the outer half of the country.

It's a place I've wanted to visit... but that would require the wife's cooperation... something I'm not likely to get. Besides... thats one heck of a long flight.

[paraclete]

I think you are talking about the Simpson desert. Temperatures inland can get extreme but people live in many parts of the continent, it's just that most of us wouldn't want to. Basically three hundred miles from the sea puts you where the towns are 50 - 100 miles apart but don't think of it like Canada a strip 100 miles wide. 12,000 miles of coastline leaves you with a lot of options

So break the flight in Hawaii or travel overnight

[smoothy]

That means NOT going to Italy that year and suffering the "wrath of the upset wife".

Goes to show how often TV doesn't portray things exactly like they are. All the shows that I have seen have portrayed the interior to be a hot and very dry place that wasn't conducive to long term habitation. Clearly as you have said that's not very accurate. Don't honestly know how far inland that supposedly started according to them.

But then... most of those shows were produced via PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) ((We jokingly refer to them as PRAVDA) and well, they have a pretty distorted world view in anything political. Kind of hoped they could at least do the nature stuff right. Guess they can't.

I have heard of the Simpson Desert, Ayers rock (who hasn't).. and some other things... but I'll admit its pretty limited.

[paraclete]

smoothy I expect what I might find habitable and you might could be two very different things but as I said earlier we see a lot of clichés. For example; no one here would have thought of spoiling king prawns (shrimp) by cooking them on a Barbq until Paul Hogan did it for a tourism ad, we prefer to eat them cold. We see PBS here in the form of a news program. Everywhere is hot, I have experienced 43'C right beside the Pacific Ocean, that was the day Canberra burned, but these are the exceptions. The most comedic cliché I have seen recently was in the film Australia where the US army was depicted racing through the Australian outback During WWII. Didn't happen, no roads, any progress would have been painfully slow.
I expect what you have seen is factual but not representative of most of the country. Uluru is interesting, the Great Barrier Reef is interesting

[smoothy]

smoothy I expect what I might find habitable and you might could be two very different things but as I said earlier we see a lot of cliches. For example; no one here would have thought of spoiling king prawns (shrimp) by cooking them on a Barbq until Paul Hogan did it for a tourism ad, we prefer to eat them cold. We see PBS here in the form of a news program. Everywhere is hot, I have experienced 43'C right beside the Pacific Ocean, that was the day Canberra burned, but these are the exceptions. The most comedic cliche I have seen recently was in the film Australia where the US army was depicted racing through the Australian outback During WWII. Didn't happen, no roads, any progress would have been painfully slow.
I expect what you have seen is factual but not representative of most of the country. Uluru is interesting, the Great Barrier Reef is interesting

Quite possible... I might consider the outback more habitible than say... Finnland. If it wasn't for the water thing. I tolerate heat far better than cold. But also true... I may be less comfortible in that extreme heat than you are. I'm certainly not aclimated to it. But our heat and your heat may feel far different... I assume much of that is dry heat with so little rain at least in the interior... here where I am the humidity soars when the temptature does and which always within days prompts severe thundershowers. Hot and dry is way different than hot and humid... and each has its own dangers if your aren't careful.

[tomder55]

The movie had something for everyone . My wife likes Hugh Jackman and I like Nichole Kidman.

Also most Americans are not familiar with the attack on Darwin Feb 1942 by the Nagumo task force that had attacked Pearl Harbor.

[smoothy]

The movie had something for everyone . My wife likes Hugh Jackman and I like Nichole Kidman.

Also most Americans are not familiar with the attack on Darwin Feb 1942 by the Nagumo task force that had attacked Pearl Harbor.

Yes... I was a HUGE WW2 buff in my youth, Had one uncle with the silver star awarded in the pacific theater he was a P-38 pilot (lot of other awards to but can't remember them all right now) and another uncle that has every bone in his body broken by a concussion shell on D-Day at Omaha Beach, Normandy... he recovered and was part of the first team of Americans that entered Peenemünde later in the war. Heard those recounts from him personally as I grew up before he passed away. He had also told me about the actions of my other uncle as that one passed away before I was born. And I had another Uncle that dissappeared during the Corrigador Death March... He was among those who started it... but wasn't among those at the end.

But I knew nothing about what happened in Australia from all the books I had read or any history class until recently. And I had red every book in the WW2 section our library had... and then some.

[excon]

Hello again:

Bill O'Reilly is a science denier. Tide goes in, tide goes out, and science doesn't know why... Huh?? He probably thinks climate change is a hoax too...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BCip...layer_embedded

excon

[smoothy]

Hello again:

Here's a science denier. He probably thinks climate change is a hoax too... Tide goes in, tide goes out, and science doesn't know why... Huh???

YouTube - Bill O'Reilly v. Dave Silverman - You KNOW they're all SCAMS!

excon

Because Al Gore has been proven a fraud... Global Warming Advocates are as much real Scientists as the Church of Scientology is when it comes to credibility anout things scientific.

If its hot they blame global warming, if it snows hard it global warming... if its dry they blame global warming... if it rains they blame global warming. In fact they blame everything on global waming... when its all been happening for EONS already.

[paraclete]

But I knew nothing about what happened in Austrailia from all the books I had read or any history class until recently. And I had red every book in the WW2 section our library had...and then some.

Yes it was somewhat of a forgotten war. Darwin was raided shortly after Pearl Harbour. Not an american in sight at that time, which makes the scene in that movie ridiculous. We accomplished much with a small number but lacked the fire power that America brought with them. If our army wasn't fighting the British end of the war in Africa and Malaya we could have put a better effort into New Guinea. If you are interested in a really great exploit look up the Krait. Also from my history point of view see beheath Hill 60, very possibly an account of my grandfather in WWI. Also consider this one sixth of the population was under arms in WWII.

[tomder55]

Hello again:

Bill O'Reilly is a science denier. Tide goes in, tide goes out, and science doesn't know why... Huh??? He probably thinks climate change is a hoax too...

YouTube - Bill O'Reilly v. Dave Silverman - You KNOW they're all SCAMS!

excon

He's mistaken there is a scientific explanation for the tides. Ironically it is an invisible force.

When my daughter was born her pediatrician ;using the best settled science ,recommended that she take floride fortified prescription vitamins. My wife and I being skeptics refused because we knew that there was plenty of naturally occurring floride in the water supply ,and that tooth pastes all had sufficient floride to make up any possible shortage... even if we lived in an area where floride wasn't added to the water supply.
We did our own independent search and found that some kids who took floride vitamins were ending up with brown and mottled teeth .Our research also showed that fluorine displaces iodine in the thyroid and American's do not consume enough iodine as it is.

Some called us crazy conspiracy nuts . But our objections wasn't based on loony theories of gvt, mind control. We made our decision based on our own reading of the science available.

Yesterday the FDA announced that the settled science on this issue was false.

Now had we followed the recommendation of the best scientific knowledge of the time ;the chances were good that my daughter could've been one of the people who were ingesting too much floride.

Today's settled science is yesterdays false premise.Yesterday floridation of the water supply was a great public health measure... today... ooops we were wrong.

[paraclete]

Well Tom we have come full circle, Ex challenged my assertion that natural variability is responsible for the weather we see and now you are proving that consensus science should not be believed. Poor Ex, shot down in flames.

Interestingly we just had another remarkable weather event 300mm of rain and another city is instantly threatened by floods. Ex would have us believe that this is the result of northern hemisphere pollution of the atmosphere. Remarkably two hundred years ago the western rivers were navigable almost to the Queensland border, Even this flood will not restore those conditions, but take heart, Ex, these floods will reduce the burning of coal in the northern hemisphere for a while

[smoothy]

Yes it was somewhat of a forgotten war. Darwin was raided shortly after Pearl Harbour. Not an american in sight at that time, which makes the scene in that movie rediculous. We accomplished much with a small number but lacked the fire power that America brought with them. If our army wasn't fighting the British end of the war in Africa and Malaya we could have put a better effort into New Guinea. If you are interested in a really great exploit look up the Krait. Also from my history point of view see beheath Hill 60, very possibly an account of my grandfather in WWI. Also consider this one sixth of the population was under arms in WWII.

I've watched that move... just a few weeks ago in fact (God I love Pirate bay). Was a really good movie. And like I said... completely new territory for me since I had heard of none of it previously. And over 6 decades after that war ended, you would have thought everything would have been out and well known. And that was hardly a minor detail.