Weather

All roads lead to Birdsville this week - or do they? While the Birdsville Race Club isn't expected to have its annual two-day meeting directly impacted by rain, there are concerns that roads leading there could be cut off to visitors. Unseasonal August rain hit the North West and parts of the Channel country earlier this week and some roads were quick to shut, albeit temporarily.

Cane farmer Tony Carusi said time was critical for planting sugarcane. “It takes time to get the ground ready and we have ideal weather conditions,” Mr Carusi said at his farm near Woodburn ... A Primary Producer Grant was announced by the State Government five months ago to help farmers after the floods. The criteria for the grant are still unknown and the grant has stalled. No money has been given to farmers yet.

Bernice Shepherd. Community gardens and city farms have been around for a long time, but they are enjoying a resurgence in popularity in Australia ... We are lucky to have several gardens in our area and I visited three of them; one well established, one partway there, and another in the beginning phases.

Full water storages coupled with a 50% chance of another La Niña  in 2022–23 are driving management strategies in the River Murray System for the year ahead, according to the MDBA's 2022–23 Annual Operating Outlook ... Murray–Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) Executive Director of River Management, Andrew Reynolds, said the Annual Operating Outlook explains how the river would be run based on a range of potential climatic and rainfall scenarios.  

Clarence Valley business HoneyBee Hives are buzzing with excitement after being announced as the runner's up in the 2022 Australian Rural Business Awards, for the Excellence in E-Commerce Award. The awards are designed to recognise the strength, resilience, and talent of small business owners in rural and regional areas who have, in the last few years alone, gone through droughts, bushfires, mouse plagues, floods, lack of tourism and a global pandemic.

Central Highlands Regional Council are continuing to zoom in on flood management in the Gemfields with the installation of a new flood and camera gauge – Graves Hill ALERT. Located upstream of Graves Hill, the new automated river gauge includes an infrared camera which  enables visibility of flood waters day and night.  

The highest rainfall in a decade has turned the red earth of Central Australia into a spectacular carpet of green vegetation ... With recent drier and hotter than average autumn days, the grasses are haying off quickly, increasing the fire risk with heavy fuel loads across the landscape. Bushfires NT (BFNT) and Parks and Wildlife have been hard at work with NTFRS, DIPL, Alice Springs Town Council and other landholders jointly planning fire mitigation strategies both within Alice Springs municipality and across the region.

Sarah Booth is heartbroken about the small hobby farmers who don’t have enough feed for their animals since the floods. “I don’t have cattle but all I could see was heartbreak,” the Wyrallah woman said. Ms Booth has 60 families waiting for animal feed for cows, horses, pigs, goats and sheep.

Extreme fire weather days have increased in Australia by 56 per cent over the last four decades, according to new research from an international team of scientists, including CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency ... CSIRO researcher, Dr Pep Canadell, said an increase in fire weather trends translated to an increase in the number of Australian bushfires.

Farmers and regional communities in the state’s Central West can now readily access detailed, real-time weather observations received by the new Doppler radar at Yeoval. Minister for Agriculture and Western NSW Dugald Saunders said the information provided by the radar will revolutionise how weather-dependent decisions are made, and will enhance the productivity of rural communities.

If we wish to compare current observations with past performance, we need to establish a set of relevant data, or baseline ... Water Corporation’s advertisements claim that “Perth’s rainfall is declining due to Climate change” showing a graph of reduced stream-flows into the reservoirs as convincing proof that “Climate change is real”. Such claims deserve scrutiny.

Suzie Christensen. Recent heavy rain on the eastern coast of New South Wales provided some unprecedented challenges for our biosecurity team both on and off the Island. The Hastings River rose very high and ran fresh for some time. Potentially tens of thousands of frogs were washed out of the surrounding lands and found themselves searching for refuge. Now, if you were a frog, where would you go? It seems the logical choice for our amphibian friends was the giant green lily pad also known as the Island Trader.

Despite the constant drizzle of rain, the Maldon Easter Parade was a smashing hit. Large crowds huddled under historic awnings watching the colourful entrants as they braved the wet weather to cheers from onlookers.

A re-elected Coalition Government will invest $38.1 million over the next three years to establish a National Veteran Volunteer Service program in partnership with Disaster Relief Australia (DRA).

“An assistant secretary from the department falsely claimed Tennant Creek’s new weather radar will be complete this year and was unaware the project’s completion has been delayed until 2023 ... At the last round of Senate Estimates in February, I was disappointed to find out only three out of 28 initiatives of the Barkly Regional Deal have been completed since the deal was signed in 2019” : Senator Marlarndirri McCarthy.

The rain keeps falling, the rivers keep rising. There is disbelief that we are flooding again, one month on from the worst floods people in the region had ever seen. Sandra Aarts at the Woodburn Bakery has had to move the shop equipment again. The bakery had only been open for a week and a half.

Researchers, Investors, Project Developers and industry participants all play an important role to scale up ocean carbon project development that will bring new innovation to enable large scale emissions reduction, plus many co-benefits such as biodiversity and jobs.

The author has set himself an enormous task to survey in depth the history of the Surrey Hills district of north-west Tasmania. Fires, Farms and Forests represents the culmination of much detailed and careful research, combined with the author’s extensive personal experience as a forester, and, in particular, his role managing the native grasslands and buttongrass moorlands on Surrey Hills. All this enables the author to weave a story which encompasses both general history as well as specialist insights into the management of land and forests.

Storms which hit Narrandera in January remain vivid in the minds of locals, with flooding still the hot topic of conversation among many who had a first hand experience of the storm disaster ... residents talked about the same things happening back in 2012 and said nothing had changed.

With a large percentage of Queensland experiencing summer rains and continuing La Niña conditions, Queensland sheep and wool producers are being urged to remain vigilant for conditions favouring flystrike.

Narrandera Shire Council Mayor Neville Kschenka was left "frustrated and heartbroken" as he witnessed the damage Narrandera sustained during the weekend storms. On the edge of Narrandera as the storm broke, Cr Kschenka reached the centre of town as the weather event gathered momentum with lashing rain and strong gusts of wind.

Many farmers in the Narrandera area agreed with NSW Farmers Grains Committee chairperson Justin Everitt that this year's harvest had resulted in a ''bumper'' year. Mr Everitt said the "end result" had been positive despite the challenges farmers had faced with worker shortages, high prices for supplies, a mouse plague and wet weather.