Must mean $Bns to agri sector. BoM Rainfall Outlook for Jan-Mar 2020 how many million square kms wrong
Max t Outlook 1 Jan to 31 Mar 2020. Three-monthly mean maximum temperature anomaly for Australia 1 Jan to 31 Mar 2020 same question.
Category Archives: Water
Long-term Climate Variability in Australia
I discovered this historic BoM (1999) flyer while searching for a hard copy of a 1992 paper on the 1970’s Pacific Climate Shift. Read how the BoM attributes – El Nino – thousands of years of ice ages and warm periods – solar cycles – volcanic eruptions – oceans and currents – sea-ice extent – greenhouse and on the back page urbanisation and land use changes get a nod. Page one – two – three – four.
I found on my HDD this front page of Kerr R.A. 1992. Unmasking a shifty climate system. Science 255: 1508–1510. – if anybody has a pdf please pass on. Three of the time-series charts in BoM 1999 – temperature – rainfall and cloud cover all show evidence of a shift in the 1970’s.
I sourced updated data for the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) from NOAA and made this monthly PDO chart 1854 to current. Positive periods tend to be dry and negative wet.
We should recall the Qld DPI very useful rainfall maps that I blogged on in March 2018. They have more versions now.
NIWA failed Outlook hours before SW NZ deluge
Days after publishing their “climate Outlook” NIWA’s work is demolished by a damaging biblical deluge NIWA was too incompetent to see coming. Hilarious – yet these taxpayer funded leech Climate orgs have any status left? 
MetService for NZ weather
BoM 1 in 100 yr Gold Coast rain exceeded 7 yrs ago
The ABC reports the BoM today “Flash flooding on Gold Coast and Brisbane sparks calls for help as storms sweep Queensland“.
BoM says, “…in some locations it was a one-in-100-year event.”
Here is BoM Qld rain totals map for today 18Jan2020 – contours for peak rain are 200-300mm.
Here is BoM Qld rain totals map for 28Jan2013 near tail end Cyclone Oswald 7 years ago – contours for peak rain are +400mm.
For interest – Qld rain totals map Jan 2013 showing influence Cyclone Oswald
Deterioration in recent BoM rainfall data
This pioneering weather map from the Sydney Morning Herald 5Feb1877 has a list of 33 towns and locations in New South Wales where daily weather observations, rainfall, max & min temperature, barometric pressure etc were being recorded. 34 if you count Sydney Observatory Hill.
For many years I have been puzzled at the deterioration in BoM rainfall data more recent than about 1995 and this list of heritage NSW weather stations is a useful source to test my 2008 claim on a group of significant BoM stations choosen by somebody else. For each location name I have searched CDO for monthly
rainfall data from ~1870’s and for sites that closed decades ago to fill gaps. I have added a site or sites till I got data ~current to 2019. I have not cut and pasted every location into a spreadsheet to test for every missing year – that can wait until I have more time.
My spreadsheet records 64 stations used to build a full record for each of the 34 locations – many could be improved by adding data from the closest Airport AWS which might be further away and as I said in the above sentence there may be a few where missing years I have not eyeballed need hunting down from neighbours.
Here is my spreadsheet where marked in red are 22 examples of “post ~1995 gappy data”.
You can check the data for yourself near the bottom of the CDO page where 3: Get the Data invites you to
type the station number and hit the Get Data button. Easy. See examples of the data deterioration –
increasing gaps – for yourself. Modern AWS sites are not immune to data gaps.
Drought in MDB worse in the past
Drought and the Govts response is red-hot in the news lately and many claims are made re “worst drought ever”.
BoM data is from their “Australian climate variability & change – Time series graphs” page.
My chart indicates the Federation Drought was clearly worse in the Murray Darling Basin than the current event.
It is also clear that there were dryer or similar anomalies circa the start of WWI, circa 1920, a twinned event in the late 1920’s, during WWII there were few periods of over average rain, a twinned event in mid 1960’s, a sharp event in 1983, 2002-03 stands out clear. Our news and public discourse is swamped with fake news and rubbish. If anybody wants the data just ask and I can email so readers can make their own charts or whatever. Thanks to Lance re data processing. Here is a BoM site with 119 maps of annual rainfall 1900 to 2018.
Moyne Shire not in drought but gets $Million
Thats in Vic based on Warrnambool ABC reports – Councillor calls for $1m drought support funding to be redirected away from his area
You can easily make drought maps here. Pick your State and check various time periods.
The SMH adds all the 13 new areas – does anybody have a link to a full list or a map of all areas listed for assistance now?
Chart stunning success Greens anti-damism
I found this on www – not sure where it was sourced – if anybody knows please pass on. Falling Behind – Water supply vs population growth.
In one simple picture – how Australian politicians and policy makers been so comprehensively dudded by Green anti-dam lies. ANCOLD – The Australian National Committee on Large Dams has an xls file for download with stats & specs for all large Oz dams. Please circulate chart to relevant politicians.
ABC Kempsey drought beatup
Another boilplate ABC article beating up the “drought”.
The Kempsey rain chart shows there have been several periods where it must have been worse. Large version chart.
Drought is a human concept best discarded
Variations in rainfall are natural, we can see that from data histories, politicians and politics should stay out of drought.
Farmers should understand their long term rainfall histories and put aside money or resources (feed) in the good years to cope with inevitable low rain years. Perhaps the tax system should make it easier for them to do that. But all Govt payouts for so called “drought relief” should be abolished. Govts have created enough disasters that there is plenty for them to do fixing the damage.