LA NIÑA PRESSES ON

Our weather is true to the predicted La Niña pattern, with higher than average rainfall in Spring and Summer, with lower than normal temperatures. The extensive severe flooding that has occurred in Southeastern Australia continues and is causing much damage and great anguish in the affected regions. This too shall pass...

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme

FLOODS!

Thousands of people across Southeastern Australia were directed to evacuate their homes on Friday, including some in a western suburb of Melbourne, after two days of incessant rains triggered flash flooding and fast-moving waters burst river banks. Large parts of the state of Victoria, southern New South Wales and the northern regions of the island state of Tasmania were pounded by an intense weather system with some taking more than a month's worth of rain since late Wednesday.

Fortunately Fairfield, our suburb, was not very hard hit - the first photo being taken outside our house. The waters stayed well away from our house! Darebin Creek, about a 10 minute walk from our home was swollen but adjacent properties were not affected. People in other suburbs, especially Maribyrnong, were not so lucky as you can see in the last two photos!

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme

CREEK

We've had a lot of rain over the past week and the waterways around Melbourne have been carrying much more water, or even flooding over. Here is Merri Creek in Clifton Hill, showing quite an increased flow.

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the My Corner of the World meme.
and also part of the Nature Notes meme.

OUR "LITTLE WINTER"

In the aftermath of dire warnings by meteorologists mid last week for an approaching "Stormaggedon", heavy rain did indeed hit Melbourne on Saturday evening causing flash floods and hundreds of calls to emergency services. There were more than 1300 call outs to the emergency services overall with 133 received by the control centre in just an hour from 5.30pm

The storm front hit the state on Friday, with the northeast the worst affected as Euroa, Myrtleford and the Buckland Valley facing severe flooding. Some of the rainfall totals seen are well and truly an entire summer’s rain almost in just a 24-hour period. Creeks and rivers swelled and low-lying areas in both City and country were inundated.

The storm was accompanied by a drop in temperature, especially considering that the last few days of November were marked by very high temperatures: Melbourne had six consecutive days over 30 °C, equalling the city's record for such a run of days from 1896 There was a total of 12 days over 30 °C during November 2017, well above the average of around three days, and exceeding the previous record of ten such days in November 1902 and 2009! On Friday, 1/12, the maximum was 25˚C, followed by Saturday's maximum of just 17˚C. Night-time temperatures plummeted to 10˚C, very low, for a Melbourne summer.

The photos below are from the swollen Darebin Creek at the Parklands in Fairfield. If you want to compare these photos to what a normal Summer level of water in the Creek is, see here.

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme,

and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme,

and also part of the Photo Sunday meme.