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philbox
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Dec 31, 2010, 8:31 AM
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We have had a heap of rain here in Queensland. Record high floods over vast areas of the state. Perhaps half the state is affected which is virtually unprecedented. A fact that one of the news presenters spoke of is that the area of the state affected by the floods is equal to Germany and France combined. Big eh.
The Fairbairn dam at Emerald is flowing over the spillway to a height of 5 metres. That spillway is massive to start with. The dam itself contains 2 and a half times the water of
Sydney Harbour. It is now at 140 percent full. It holds back a veritable inland sea.
Some of the inland waterways have flood heights over 16 metres above normal. Some of the towns will be under for months as the water has a long way to go and not much fall to get it away.
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blondgecko
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Dec 31, 2010, 9:38 AM
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Yeah, it's just nuts how much rain has been falling - in both November and December we had more than the average rainfall for that month fall within less than 48 hours. December will be very, very close to a record for Brisbane, and we got off pretty easy compared to the rest of the state.
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philbox
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Dec 31, 2010, 9:58 AM
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A mate of mine at Murphy's Creek watched as his little trickle of a creek turned into the raging Zambezi River. His campground is now a swamp and that is on the hillside. Interestingly the creek flats are bone dry being alluvial sandstone sand.
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dan2see
Dec 31, 2010, 4:53 PM
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Here in Calgary, we live in "semi-desert" climate. Plus our house is on a hillside, so that flood could never happen to us!
Also, if the transit train (downhill) gets stuck, the bus on the other side (uphill) will still run.
Nope, it'll never happen here!
But just in case, today we are stocking up on extra water (in 19-liter bottles) and an extra propane tank for the BBQ. Our car is parked on gravel (there's almost no soil in it) so it won't get mired.
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curt
Jan 2, 2011, 12:50 AM
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Hey Phil and BG,
I saw that on the news here in the States. Are you guys OK?
Curt
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blondgecko
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Jan 2, 2011, 12:55 AM
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curt wrote: Hey Phil and BG, I saw that on the news here in the States. Are you guys OK? Curt
Apart from a touch of cabin fever, everything's fine here. Thanks for asking. It's more the people in the north and west of the state that really got hit hard.
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philbox
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Jan 2, 2011, 2:54 AM
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Yeah, the floods haven't really affected me or the town in south east Queensland I live in however just west of here the floods have been huge. We drove over the Condamine River bridge near Millmerran after the floods had receded in that area and even though the water had only gone 4 or 5 feet over it was a couple of miles wide.
These floods will be here for many months as the huge sea of water moves down the Murray Darling system. There aint much fall from here through a couple of thousand kilometres of serpentine river drainage.
I saw a picture of a house from a helicopter. The top of the ridge cap on the roof was completely under water. You could see through the water the outline of the house roof. That would indicate a water level of over 30 feet and that is not even in the river of course. Rockhampton is now isolated with the airport officially closed and water running through the departure lounge. Highways are cut all over the state.
Thanks for asking Curt. The floods here are a pretty big deal. I'm now out of the state and heading over to Tasmania for a two week climbing holiday after driving 20 hours from Queensland across New South Wales and Victoria. I'm on the ferry crossing Bass Strait as we speak. 2 weeks climbing, woohoo.
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blondgecko
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Jan 2, 2011, 4:58 AM
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philbox wrote: These floods will be here for many months as the huge sea of water moves down the Murray Darling system. There aint much fall from here through a couple of thousand kilometres of serpentine river drainage.
That's putting it mildly. ~300m drop in ~3000km. A 1 in 10,000 slope - if you managed to get a pool table that level, you'd be pretty darn proud of yourself.
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Arrogant_Bastard
Jan 3, 2011, 11:18 PM
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I have just noticed that there is a disproportionate number of convicts... sorry, Aussies, that are serving as Dictators here. What gives?
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notapplicable
Jan 4, 2011, 1:44 AM
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blondgecko wrote: philbox wrote: These floods will be here for many months as the huge sea of water moves down the Murray Darling system. There aint much fall from here through a couple of thousand kilometres of serpentine river drainage. That's putting it mildly. ~300m drop in ~3000km. A 1 in 10,000 slope - if you managed to get a pool table that level, you'd be pretty darn proud of yourself.
Damn! That sucks not being able to start the clean up and recovery in any meaningful way for a month+ after the event. I would imagine that takes a psychological toll on the residents. Just having to watch and wait.
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blondgecko
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Jan 4, 2011, 10:24 AM
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notapplicable wrote: blondgecko wrote: philbox wrote: These floods will be here for many months as the huge sea of water moves down the Murray Darling system. There aint much fall from here through a couple of thousand kilometres of serpentine river drainage. That's putting it mildly. ~300m drop in ~3000km. A 1 in 10,000 slope - if you managed to get a pool table that level, you'd be pretty darn proud of yourself. Damn! That sucks not being able to start the clean up and recovery in any meaningful way for a month+ after the event. I would imagine that takes a psychological toll on the residents. Just having to watch and wait.
Yeah... and the really disturbing thing is that all signs point to there being a fair bit more to come.
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edge
Jan 4, 2011, 1:39 PM
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blondgecko wrote: philbox wrote: These floods will be here for many months as the huge sea of water moves down the Murray Darling system. There aint much fall from here through a couple of thousand kilometres of serpentine river drainage. That's putting it mildly. ~300m drop in ~3000km. A 1 in 10,000 slope - if you managed to get a pool table that level, you'd be pretty darn proud of yourself.
Couldn't you get some boy scouts to make a bucket brigade to the ocean?
Jeeze, I have to think of everything around here...
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blondgecko
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Jan 9, 2011, 8:29 AM
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... and it's just not stopping. Just to set the scene, the average January rainfall for Brisbane and surrounds is about 150-200 mm (6-8 inches). In the last four days, we've had about 250 mm. Just half an hour's drive north of us, they've had at least 400 mm, with 250 mm (10 inches) of that falling in the past nine hours. 
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blondgecko
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Jan 10, 2011, 11:40 AM
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Holy shit...
Hey Phil, are you (and your house) ok?
The situation's officially scary in many parts of south-east Queensland now. So far, the Wivenhoe Dam's doing its job to protect Brisbane. It was built after the devastating 1974 floods as a "never again" measure. This is its first real test since - apparently inflows into the catchment are currently bigger than they were in '74.
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edge
Jan 10, 2011, 3:14 PM
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That is indeed scary. Sending prayers and positive energy.
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blondgecko
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Jan 10, 2011, 9:43 PM
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Video of what hit Toowoomba yesterday afternoon. 3-4 inches of rain in an hour on an already-soaked catchment... apparently the water came up in just a few minutes. People were literally trapped in (or on the roofs of) their cars. At least eight dead so far.
Toowoomba's on top of the range, so all this water then headed on down to the valley below, leading to a general emergency evacuation warning. Even so, a number of families have spent the night sitting on the roofs of their houses, and the death toll will undoubtedly be rising this morning.
Even worse, this morning brings yet another onslaught - as I type this, there's a continuous, slow-moving band of cloud about 100 miles long and 10 miles wide dropping 2-4 inches of rain an hour over the exact same damn area.
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blondgecko
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Jan 11, 2011, 1:40 AM
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Blub blub blub...
Parts of Brisbane will be going under today and tomorrow. It's impossible for it not to when the past two days have averaged over 100mm per day over the entire ~10,000 square mile catchment. And it's still falling. The two dams (which hold 100% of their "full" capacity in reserve for this sort of situation) currently stand at 160 and 175% capacity respectively, and are rising fast.
I'm relatively lucky - my house is in a different, much smaller catchment area, and flooding there is close to impossible - and there's no danger of my route there being cut off. But most people here are heading off home, to protect their houses and/or make sure they can get home before the roads go under. And Phil's home town... well, see the video linked above to see the disaster that went through there yesterday.
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notapplicable
Jan 11, 2011, 1:56 AM
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blondgecko wrote: Video of what hit Toowoomba yesterday afternoon.
Yeah, you get caught out in that and you are pretty much fucked. Don't care how strong a swimmer you are. That is intense man.
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blondgecko
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Jan 11, 2011, 8:39 AM
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notapplicable wrote: blondgecko wrote: Video of what hit Toowoomba yesterday afternoon. Yeah, you get caught out in that and you are pretty much fucked. Don't care how strong a swimmer you are. That is intense man.
Yeah. To make matters worse, Toowoomba's at the top of a very steep slope, with about 600m vertical elevation. All that water went thundering straight down into the (thankfully relatively sparsely populated) Lockyer Valley. In the villages down there, houses weren't so much flooded as demolished. Others were picked up and just... floated away.
Meanwhile, dams or no dams it looks like the day after tomorrow the Brisbane River's going to peak higher than it did in '74 (about 5.7m or 18 feet above its normal level). The combination of all that water hitting the city at the same time as a peak tide = disaster. At least Brisbane will have time to prepare.
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airscape
Jan 11, 2011, 9:35 AM
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Those floods are terrible.
I cannot even imagine so much water running over my house.
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kachoong
Jan 11, 2011, 1:17 PM
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blondgecko wrote: notapplicable wrote: blondgecko wrote: Video of what hit Toowoomba yesterday afternoon. Yeah, you get caught out in that and you are pretty much fucked. Don't care how strong a swimmer you are. That is intense man. Yeah. To make matters worse, Toowoomba's at the top of a very steep slope, with about 600m vertical elevation. All that water went thundering straight down into the (thankfully relatively sparsely populated) Lockyer Valley. In the villages down there, houses weren't so much flooded as demolished. Others were picked up and just... floated away. Meanwhile, dams or no dams it looks like the day after tomorrow the Brisbane River's going to peak higher than it did in '74 (about 5.7m or 18 feet above its normal level). The combination of all that water hitting the city at the same time as a peak tide = disaster. At least Brisbane will have time to prepare.
Crazy stuff! Hope you're OK, Phil!
I know your house is up on the hill but hopefully you and your family were not out in it. Your workplace is down near the creek, right? Or perhaps further up.
When I first heard Toowoomba was flooding, I couldn't believe it. I worked there for two years and lived there for a year and figured it was too steep. Forgot to realize that the creek in town was in an urban setting with quite a large catchment area. Flash flood mecca.
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climbs4fun
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Jan 11, 2011, 4:30 PM
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blondgecko wrote: Video of what hit Toowoomba yesterday afternoon. 3-4 inches of rain in an hour on an already-soaked catchment... apparently the water came up in just a few minutes. People were literally trapped in (or on the roofs of) their cars. At least eight dead so far. Toowoomba's on top of the range, so all this water then headed on down to the valley below, leading to a general emergency evacuation warning. Even so, a number of families have spent the night sitting on the roofs of their houses, and the death toll will undoubtedly be rising this morning. Even worse, this morning brings yet another onslaught - as I type this, there's a continuous, slow-moving band of cloud about 100 miles long and 10 miles wide dropping 2-4 inches of rain an hour over the exact same damn area.
Wait, Toowoomba is where Phil lives, isn't it?
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blondgecko
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Jan 11, 2011, 5:22 PM
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climbs4fun wrote: blondgecko wrote: Video of what hit Toowoomba yesterday afternoon. 3-4 inches of rain in an hour on an already-soaked catchment... apparently the water came up in just a few minutes. People were literally trapped in (or on the roofs of) their cars. At least eight dead so far. Toowoomba's on top of the range, so all this water then headed on down to the valley below, leading to a general emergency evacuation warning. Even so, a number of families have spent the night sitting on the roofs of their houses, and the death toll will undoubtedly be rising this morning. Even worse, this morning brings yet another onslaught - as I type this, there's a continuous, slow-moving band of cloud about 100 miles long and 10 miles wide dropping 2-4 inches of rain an hour over the exact same damn area. Wait, Toowoomba is where Phil lives, isn't it?
This is correct.
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atg200
Jan 11, 2011, 5:41 PM
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Kartessa
Jan 11, 2011, 6:12 PM
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Holy Shit!
Stay safe!
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