Bloody-hell.  Just been catching up with the news.  Looks like no-one will be moaning about the levels in the Wivenhoe dam for a week or two...

Yep

It's crazy man

Waters have either risen or will rise to 9m.

I have managed to make a donation.  Qld animal rescue.  I rarely contribute to charities who do stuff for people.  Not that I don't like people it's just that animals seem to get overlooked.  Let's hope the emergency/defence services are able to get help to wherever it's needed.

Yeah. The rescue effort seems to be pretty efficient judging from the coverage here

There was a nice bit on the news about miner who can't get to work (the mines are cut off or drowned) going around helping people clean up their homes.

Really warmed my heart

CP, Andro, are you two affected by this?  And I wonder how Heller is getting on?

Heller sounds all right. No definitive update either way

Have you heard from Heller?  Has anyone heard from Heller?

He added me on FB recently

Confirmed he was alive, and then that was about it

Brisbane is relatively un-affected by this bout of flooding, Arfur...there has been some flooding in the greater Brisbne area, but most of it was flash flooding during heavy rains and some near the river (at high tide) when the flood gates were opened at Wivenhoe dam..

Here in Brissie we had our fill of flooding in 1974 when large parts of the city went under, and may well have had some trouble this time only for the Wivenhoe Dam which was originally built for flood mitigation, but has now become Brisbane's main water storage...

Some one I know living in Brissie said this morning that their street is in a part which has been warned of flooding.

Did I read it wrong?

Not necessarily deezee, there is heavy rain forcast here in the next few days add localised flooding will possibly occur in some places...

In the 74 floods the water flooded some houses accross the road from me, but stopped at the bottom of my driveway.... There was 13 foot of water through my workplace then though..made a bloody mess it did..

Part of today's forecast..(Bris is in the South East Coast district)

Thundery rain areas with some heavy falls are expected to develop this evening
and overnight over the Maranoa, Darling Downs and Granite Belt and Southeast
Coast districts and southern parts of the Wide Bay and Burnett and Central
Highlands and Coalfields districts. This heavy rain is expected to extend to the
Capricornia and remaining parts of the Wide Bay and Burnett during Thursday. The
rain will ease over the Maranoa, western Darling Downs and southwestern Central
Highlands and Coalfields during Thursday.

Heavy rainfall may lead to localised flash flooding and/or worsen current river
flooding.

So the already flooded areas can expect more rain..

DAMN

Well lets hope that there is not too much grief down-stream (no pun intended).  While there is unlikely to be suffering on the scale experienced in Pakistan and other not so well organised countries it's small comfort for someone who has worked hard to build their life only to find a good chunk of their life has been washed down the pan.

Yeah, exactly.

How is that a comfort? I wouldn't like my life washed away.

As in:

"The fact that there is lots of people dying in the Pakistan floods (means fuck-all) to me, I've just lost everything"  replace the words in brackets with "is small comfort" and it puts the sentence into a better context.

Still pissing down in Brissie, various roads have been closed, some of them near my place..

Although my road floods about 300 meters east of me and about 1km west of me, I am on higher ground and only get marooned (during heavy rain) for about an hour or so either side of the high tide and that only happens once or twice a year..I thought it may occur today the way it was raining and with a high tide at 12.18pm...but it didn't...

Only get the flashy local flooding up here in the Hills. Mind you I am <300m from Kedron Brook which went over the Samford Road crossing outside the Ferny Grove Tavern a few weeks ago. Went for a ride two days ago. All the usual gullies that you can scream down and back up at a decent pace are normally dry as a badgers bum but are all flowing quickly at a depth of a few inches at least.

Went up to Wivenhoe the other day. Flood gates were closed off the previous day. Still was an awesome sight. Like Andro says ... Brisbane is well protected by Wivenhoe which holds about 1,100,000 ML for supply (full) and about that and a half again for flood protection which to the dismay of the dumb flok HAS TO BE released to keep it available for flood protection. That said, I recall that the volume of water released from Wivenhoe this wet season alone could supply the population of Australia for three years or something like that. Either way ... shit loads.

I'd say Heller would be fine. I don't think the Mary River has done a real lot in comparison to the others. Gympie usually floods at the drop of a hat and we haven't heard boo out of there this summer. I'm not completely intimate with his parcel but I understand he is up in the hills between Gympie and Maryborough and would be fine in most cases.

So on the scale of things you three Qld'ers don't look like you are going to get the rough end of the stick, so as to speak.

Yep it all hit the Fitzroy basin which as I might have suggested the other day, is the biggest watershed flowing East so in other words it is a rather big fucker. Major tributaries would be the Dawson and the Mackenzie. The Mackenzie is broken into the Nogoa which holds the second biggest storage in Qld ... the Fairbairn Dam 1,300,000ML and just downstream is Emerald which got bollocked. A bit further east ity meets the Comet ... oddly enough at a place called Comet .. and becomes the Mackenzie. Further yet the Isaac joins from the North. A little further east and the Dawson joins from the south ... which has other minor tribs called The Dee and The Don ... the second of whom we could use right about now. At this point it becomes the Fitzroy and hits the coast through Rockhampton which is for alll intents and purposes ... fucked. Pleased I can remember all this because I ought to know by now given the area is home to Qld's mining boom and has put a lot of food on my table. Could just about draw the catchment map and flow paths one legged with the eyes shut and a nikko pen hanging out of the arsehole.

Yeah that's about close according to this ...

 http://www.derm.qld.gov.au/wrp/pdf/fitz/fitzroy_map.pdf

Forgot about the Brown River which is the top end of Comet. That is an amazing bit of topography. To be so close to the source of the Dawson then the two diverge dramatically is awesome (for geography twats perhaps). That area is called Arcadia Valley.

I have what might be a stupid question - does this mean the drought is over?

If the water management is anything like it is in parts of the UK then the answer will be no...  It's been regularly pissing down in the UK for almost a year now with record rain-fall in the southern counties in winter-time but it is still likely that there will be a hose-pipe ban this coming summer in Kent and Sussex.  Apparently they get most of their water from underground aquifers and they were severely depleted after sever years of not much winter rain.

Yeah takes a while for groundwater to recharge. There's a general 230L/person/day guideline here now which is about 50L lower than the plundering days. Mind you I read (could be wrong here) than only about 15% of water use is domestic so pulling the brakes on that is a bit futile. Not sure what happens in Kunt and Sessex as far as industry goes though. Might be different...

Oh yeah. Water management system here is shithouse

I think there is also a factor of 20% wastage due to the state of the supply pipes.

I'll be the first to fess up that it takes a while for fashions, trends and fads to catch on in Queensland but that's largely because Qld'ers are not the biggest bunch of fickle spivvy twats getting around. Notwithstanding, Qld is certainly leading the race when it comes to the current line of women footwear ...

hahahahhahaha

Genius yet terrible....

On a more serious note ... Toowoomba the latest place to be fucked. Theres a bit of footage getting around of a bunch or cars totally rearranged in a tetris theme. Brisbane could be in a bit of strife soon with Wivenhoe primed to be full in a day and a half. It's already at the highest ever and there's more water gone through than what did in 1974 before it was built.

and this ...

Just got a call from mother. It was your typical call ... "why have you gone to the city ... it's going to flood ... etc etc doomsday etc etc".

I said no worried mum. I''m no the 14th floor and we move to the 18th in June.

She also reckons a house in Withcott crashed into the pub in Grantham. Hard to believe ...

Mind yopu I've just been looking at more pictures and it may well be the case. Also read Wivenhoe is set to spill in the next 2 days for the first time ever. Maybe the old lady was right.

Yep, hard to watch the old home town (Toowoomba) cop such a beating..I've still got rellies up there and at Gatton in the Lockyer Valley, where they suffered the aftermath of the Toowoomba floods..

I remember as a kid being tokd that Toowoomba could never flood as it was perched on top of a bloody big mountain in the Great Dividing Range, but then again no one ever imagined in their wildest dreams that their would be a massive cloudburst which would dump about 90mm of rain in about an hour..The creek that (they say) flooded and cut the town in half at the CBD is more of a drain than a creek, in the strict sense of the word..

The problem now is where the water is going to go now? It has already swamped the towns to the east and is making the flooding much worse to the north, west and south and all the water that has flooded the Lockyer Valley will end up in the Bremer and Brisbane rivers and start to seriously affect Ipswich and parts of Brisbane..

They say that Brissie's moment of truth will occur tomorrow (wed) on the high tide, which is approx 1.30pm today and 2.15 tomorrow..

Just heard a news flash stating that the Brisbane River has broken it's banks and that parts of the CBD are being evacuated..

Tide times at "The Port Office" (in the city) are Bris Bar times +37mins, so that will give a high tide in the CBD at about 2.07pm today..thats in 55mins time...

Can conform the evacuation bit. I'm still here Fortune favours the brave. Or fool hardy?

Still pissing down rain and thunder here and a few roads close to here have been cut..

Don't forget to put your floaties on, Ruski...

Heard public transport is about to be cut.

Son is Qld Fleet Manager for a major Aust transport company and he is having all sorts of trouble with trucks stranded all over the state and having to make 1500km detours to get to Townsville..the way things are going he may have to stay at work overnight..Their Bundaberg depot had 3ft of water through it at the weekend..

Heard public transport is about to be cut.

Even trains..?

Yeah just trying to confirm that. If it's the case I'm here for the night

Caboolture line suspended from Strathpine to Gympie

Rest still look OK apart from West of Ipswich

Some of the raifall totals in the last few hours in Caboolture are phenomenal

Oops, looks like grandson in law will be spending the night in the watch house..(he works at Police HQ)..

And Wivenhoe is still copping the rain ...

Hourly totals so far today

Wivenhoe Dam Hw AL-B *

6am 20

7am 32

8am 34

9am 38

10am 32

11am 33

12pm 34

1pm 52

(millimetres)

Wamuran AL *

35

46

28

50

48

67

27

17

Moorina AL *

36

34

43

53

101

41

30

17

(both upslope of Caboolture)

Bruce Hwy cut at Caboolture

Hey, where did my last post go?

Oh well, too tired to write it all again..

This doesn't sound like fun. Am I getting this right that it's "downtown" Brissie also getting it in the neck.  What about the suburbs and the other districts where people live.  We are being told on our news that evacuation orders have been given for quite a few areas...

All the riverside suburbs will cop it with the high tide tomorrow afternoon and worse Thursday afternoon when prediction is higher than 1974. Downtown Brisbane will not be spared. Shopfronts along Edward and Albert Streets are already sandbagged.

Hopefully I can get to work tomorrow and will take the video for some ace-on-the-spot-reporting in the afternoon when the peak happens.

The gauge to watch is this one ...

http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDQ65389/IDQ65389.540198.plt.shtml

To get the actual number ...

http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDQ65389/IDQ65389.540198.tbl.shtml 

... and scroll to the bottom of the table. To put it in perspective, 1974 levels reached something like 5 metres. Tomorrow might be around 4. Thursday around 5.5. 1893 was 8m.

Outersuburbs in the north west at least are OK. A bit of local flashy stuff but will be clear of the rising water from the river. Bay area might be different.

Hmm, this part of the bayside is ok (at the moment) but the real test will be on the high tides tomorrow 2.16pm and thurs 3.15pm (at the Bris bar).. I think/hope they fixed the Wynnum Creek flooding problem when the got fid of all the Weeping Willows along the banks that used to catch all the rubbish and act like a dam..so I hope I'm ok..

What I don't get is all the bullshit from the wankers on the tv about king tides, as the tide heights are actually falling (if you discount the flood waters) not rising...Also in 1974 the floods were caused by cyclone "Wanda" hanging around off the coast which caused a huge tidal surge, which combined with a king tide and a shitload of rain, swamped Brisbane..Surely I'm not the only person still alive that remembers that, but I have not heard one single tv weather (so called) expert say it..That Gary Youngberry bloke on Ch 9 should go back to Mexico, or wherever he hails from, as he's got little understanding of Qld weather..

Those River height guages are handy, Ruski..I presume what they refer to as the City Guage, is the same place that we always called the Port Office? (no not the hotel).. I think they knocked the pub down..

Was talking to my son earlier and he is looking for somewhere to park 170 trucks and almost 30 semi-trailers, before high tide tomorrow (their holding yard flooded in 1974)....Their Ipswich depot went under earlier tonight and with the Toowoomba depot sustaining considerable damage yesterday, he is not a happy chappy..but he offered me a bed if I get washed out..

I suggested to my son that they park their trucks in King George Square, but he didn't think Campbell Newman (the Lord Mayor) would appreciate it..

Yep City gauge is at the Port Office on Edward St. Would probably need to add a half hour to the bar times for the high tides there.

It's all buggered. Crazy

Any of you Queenslanders need a place to evacuate to, my doors are open

I was actually thinking that earlier dek, however at this minute I have mosoonal rain squalls coming in through my lounge room window so it might not be the best place to come. Tropical climate and cyclones whatnot, I think the idea of evacuating is to go somewhere dryer than where you are. However, my place is still standing which is more than most flood victims have, so yes, you can come to my place as well if you need.

Yeah, it's been raining all night and thru some days since Sat, but it is still drier than Qld

The Brissie cbd boardwalk -

The bayside is still above the waters as I write this (with about ¾ hour to high tide), but the big test will be the peak in the morning around 3.30am here (at the Bris Bar) and 4.00am in the city...Lots of houses and businesses have been flooded already and last night about one third of Ipswich went under..

As the floods recede in the Lockyer Valley the search for bodies begins and they expect the death toll to rise considerably..

Thank you, Deezee and Morgan for your offers of assistance, but I am reasonably confident that I personally will be ok..

The Southbank ferry terminal has just broken off and dissappeared. I'm heading out in about an hour to have a look ... obviously at where it once was.

Oh shite..

Add that to the other pontoons and assorted boats and debris that have broken loose and are floating down the river..

Victoria Bridge and Goodwill Bridge are closed.

You're not in the CBD are you Ruski?

Just been for a drive around the Wynnum, Manly, Lota foreshores for a stickybeak..Water about 1ft below sea-wall in most places but at the southern end of The Esplanade at Lota there is a lot of flotsam and jetsam accross the road and the residents have their fence-lines and driveways sandbagged..These poor buggers are always the first to go under, even in a king tide, never mind a flood..  But at least the rain has stopped and their only worry now is how much the river discharging into the bay will increase the height of the tide in the morning..but at least it isn't a king tide no matter what the tv weather men say...

Entire bay is a dirty brown colour...

The Southbank pool is about to go under

http://twitpic.com/3p98uh

I think I walked by there when I was there. Geesas

Oh well, it's meant to have water in it......only jokin.

hahah Well, it does

If you take a look at this Dept of Main Roads site you will see all the road closures in Qld and get some idea of the massive problem we face, not only in the south east, but all over the state.. http://highload.131940.qld.gov.au/

We've even got Cockroaches, Mexicans, Tasmaniac's and even Kiwi's helping us, and very grateful for their assistance we be..

The Sand Gropers are too busy lighting fires and complaining, to help..

And it sounds like you have snakes, crocs and sharks to complete the menagerie

Yep, we need Steve Irwin to round em up for us..

That other Crock Hunter "Malcolm Douglas", was recently killed in WA as well.

There was another one?!

Yeah in the CBD. Just been for a butchers hook. Saw a giant water tank bobbing its way down the middle of the river. Police have got a lot of areas closed off so there wasn't a real lot of opportunity. Water coming up Albert St and is alomst up to the corner of Mary now, ie. Gardens are under and it's past Alice and Margaret St's. Another metre and a half of water is expected by tomorrow afternoon. Couldn't get across to Southbank. Heard the BCC are going to destroy the floating pontoon riverwalk that goes along the bank at New Farm. And that's just here. There's going to countless billions lost to damage.

Yeah, no doubt about that

Heard the floating restaurant on Oxleys wharf has let go and is gone

Damn

Is the water (generally) headed to the ocean or downstream?

Downstream into the bay, and thence into the ocean..

12 dead, 51 missing, grave fears for 9..

They've found two people alive who had been swept away..

There was another one?!

Yep, you must have seen his wildlife doco's..Malcolm Douglas, he had a crock farm over in West Aust...Tall, bearded, slow talking bloke always wore navy blue shorts and used to do a bit of bush cooking with his camp oven..Made lots of tv shows and was always fishing or catching crocks..or other equally dangerous things..I think he was killed when his 4WD crashed into a tree near Broome, last September.. 

http://www.malcolmdouglas.com.au/

Suncorp Stadium, going under..

No, don't think I've seen him

Someone on Twitter earlier was musing about the state of the cricket pitch, and if the cricket match has been rescheduled or the like

Hmm, I haven't heard anything about The Gabba lately..but thats not till the 30th Jan, isn't it? Or am I thinking about somthing different..

Yeah, that's the date I think

75% of Queensland is rooted!

Now it's flooding northern NSW...The Clarence..

7.64 metres.

I'd drown in that. Not kidding

In Brissie they're predicting 5.2 metres peak.

Brings back bad memories..But onwards and upwards!..

Bloody hell...

Yep.

Post some photos soon ...

Dudes.

Southbank Ferry Terminals

Cnr Margaret and Albert

A tank

Jelly Fish Restaur

William Jolly with the occasional bit of water flowing ...

Good pics, Ruski....Fotgot to take my camera when I went on my drive this afternoon and the camera on my mobile is playing up for some reason....(maybe it's like me, too old)..

Like the pic of the Grey St Bridge..

4 hours to go till flood peak at 3.29am (+37mins for the city), but it's only a predicted 1.78m high.tide, and and the second peak will be at 3.13pm with a height of 1.69m..you don't really get low tides during a major flood, just a slight easing off of tidal height..

No sign of flood water here as yet, and hoping there's not any after I go to bed, which will be soon..

Clucking-bell. That river is quite big at low-level so for it to be as high as it is.... jeeze...

And I've eaten at the the Cha Bar.  When last in Brissie, I stayed in the Roma Holiday Inn nearby.  Having a bit of difficulty resolving the angle of that Jelly Fish picture CP.  Did you wade to the front of the building overlooking the river?

*edited because it was daughter and idiot-in-law who ate at the jelly, not me (but I expect I paid anyway...)*

No Arthur I was on the podium above and behind the restaurant.

The metal and perspex on the right is the awning over the front of the restaurant.

You Qlders and your families all ok? Given you're online, I'm guessing it's all good?

Yeah we're up in the hills and fine. You might call it "the sticks" but it has its advantages. Flood Engineers and even ex-flood engineers don't buy property near rivers.

This is worth a look. I was at the Port Office at the end of Edward St at the time where all the boats are moored. All of a sudded appeared this yacht of sorts floating slowly backwards. I was thinking ... hang on ... the motor isn't going and there may not be anyone on it. All of a sudden there was this piercing crack as it hit a submerged mooring post then it stopped half hung up on it. Then the first fellow comes zooming in on a tinny with a small outboard, ties off on the yacht and gets on. Another chap was hovering around in another tinny. It looked like it was about to go under right then and there ... but it freed itself and went on down the river out of our view. The missus had the camera on I think. A few hundred metres doen near Customs House it went down to Davey Jones's. Fortunately the two fellows were plucked out of the river a few kilometres downstream.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/two-swept-away-in-swollen-river/story-e6freoof-1225987341226

Flood Engineers and even ex-flood engineers don't buy property near rivers.

It is all prediction. There is nothing exact about flood modelling unless it is after the fact.

Educated prediction of course.

Highly tuned educated ...

Self absorbed ...

etc etc.

From that level you can see how fast the waters are moving. Sheesh

About 15 knots

or almost 30km/h ... in the middle that is. The boat was near the bank

In fact that was right outside the Jelly Fish Restaur

I'm still here, didn't get washed away, In fact apart from everything being wet and boggy you wouldn't know anything had happened..Unless of course you went for a short drive, or turned the tv on, or go to any of the supermarkets around here where there is bugger all to buy, especially in the fresh friut and vege and dairy sections..

My son got most of his company's trucks and semi's moved to higher ground and only lost one large truck and a fork lift, he was buggered last night as he had been going for almost 30hrs without sleep..

Mower man came and attended to the lawn today and now it looks like someone lives here and not like a scene from the Amazon Jungle...The poor bugger has been doing it tough with no income for the last two weeks..

There's a lot of hardship going around. Heart-breaking

Going to register tomorrow to help clean up. Story is you go to one of the four points and sign up then they take a group on a bus to a street and you are assigned to a house to help clean it up.

Despite being a big ugly bastard I was properly filling up listening to that rescue workers account of the young lad who basically gave up his life by forcing the rescue worker to take his brother ahead of him.

Respect too for you and all the others like you CP, getting stuck-in to the pile of shit, best wishes to you all.

Yeah that was a crushing story. No words really.

Least I can do now. Apart from being late in to work on Thursday I have been unaffected.

Hey Ruski, do you know if the postal service is working ok? Thinking of sending some care packages up

Ended up assigned to Westlake which, if you google it, you'll see it's millionaires row. Pretty much all along the river is. I suppose not anymore hey? Initially thought we'd be of better use in Oxley or Rocklea where generally not everyone owns a gurney or knows someone who does. Anyway, the house we ended up helping out with was owned by an old Italian fellow whose wife was a little vision impaired and a bit upset about it all. When we walked down the driveway you could easily see what this fellows hobby was ... automobiles. The Ferrari and the Bentley gave it away after a few seconds. But the clincher was the other Ferrari in the triple garage. Their whole first floor was inundated and we had to get everything out and into the garage which was on a higher level ... a fortunate design advantage given the vehicles. One thing about Italian fellows ... their taste is polar. ie. Exceptionally expensive or shithouse but still expensive. Nothing in between. I was trying to estimate the value of whatever happened to be in my hands as I carried it across wet slippery exposed pebble concrete. Then there was the furniture. Not a single trace of laminated chipboard or mdf. This was all the solid (heavy!) stuff that tends to survive a bit of water around the legs. Anyway buggered now so off for a nap.

Believe the post is getting through to 80% of areas which is a fair bit better than electricity at the moment.

Neither affected here though. Nor the floods. There are two faces to this whole thing.

High res aerial imagery is up ...

Lang Park and Milton 

Rocklea

St Lucia

You get the idea. Most damage was upstream when the bank was breached. Not a real lot of water arriving from the local creeks. All the usual ones downstream of CBD that flood when the humidity reaches 90 like Norman, Breakfast and Bulimba stayed fairly low.

Holy Shit

Oh, that was for the cars

Yeah thought that would blow your dress up. One was a F430 Spider. Still trying to work out the other.

Second one appears to be an F599.

No idea what sort was the Bentley next to the F599. I guess that's because it was next to the F599. Shopping car perhaps.

O M D

A 430 AND a 599?!

Was it a Bentley Coupe?

Oh and good on ya Ruski. For volunteering. (not just for the car news)

Yeah it was a bit like that.

Damn

For the record we got off lightly. Some areas are absolute carnage in comparison.

In Brissie?

Some of the images of the other towns have been, as you say, carnage

I've been dreaming up a design where houses are built on a levered platform. You know, like those things warehouses use to hoist people up to the higher shelves?

Using those maps it implies that the Gabba has not flooded, or have the tiles for that area not been updated?

Gabba would not have flooded.

I heard that Michael Vaughan and Shane Warne are trying to get the main characters from the Australia/England 2003-2007 cricket teams to play a match somewhere in Australia in aid of the floods.  They reckon that it will, at least, fill a stadium and raise a couple or three million dollars.

Although putting in that post has prompted me to check on proceedings and it would seem that the plans have been scotched.  Boring sods...

Dear Queensland, please make your floods go away so the petrol stations can stop using it as an excuse to charge me 139.9c per litre. Could not believe that at all 

I'm sure you lot in Qld are probably paying more, but when my usual (already ridiculously high) price of 133.9 - 135.9 goes up to almost $1.40, it makes me a tad grumpy.

Especially since we don't even get our fuel from Qld at all.

As far as I can tell, ALL prices have gone up. $5 mangoes

Not sure if it's inflation, floods, or just an excuse for gouging

Excuse I reckon. My groceries haven't really changed. The cost of living in Darwin is quite high anyway. It's only petrol that I've really noticed going up. 12c jump in 10 days. Normally I can deal with it, but I'm just a bit crabby today.

The reason fuel prices are so high is easy to understand if you take into account that most oil producers and oil company's are greedy thieving bastards!

But, back to the weather, where the people who know what's going on have produced this Australian weather map, containg all the latest data and predicted outcomes...I have obtained this copy at enormous personal expense, but as nothing is too good for my friends at tangler, please accept this as a free gift from me.....

Australian Weather Map 2011

HAHAHAHHA

Gold

Morgan ... if recent history is anything to go by there are two simple rules to follow ...

1. Price per litre at the bowser is linked to the cost of a barrel of Singapore crude if it's going up.

2. Price per litre at the bowser has nothing to do with the cost of a barrel of Singapore crude if it's going down.

I paid UK£1.394 per litre of diesel this morning. That equates to about AU$2.20 and just goes to show that the old policy of deporting all the thieves to Australia didn't work...

According to this CP, you'd be right.

I guess there's no point in pointing out US prices...

Are they higher or lower there? They do it by the gallon though, so we'd have to work on a conversion.

Definitely lower, even by my rudimentary mental calculations

That sucks.

On the other hand, they keep going to wars for the black stuff....

1 US gallon = 3.785 litres or

1 litre = 0.264 US gallons

1 UK gallon = 4.54609 Litres

1 litre = 0.219969 UK gallons or 1.75 pints

Yeah. 1 US gallon = 3.785 L = ~$3.05/L (from memory)

Do the math

That's cheaper than milk here

That's cheaper than milk here

If you can find some to buy..(milk that is) 

Was the Clem Jones affected?  and how's it looking in Brisbane these days.  Have the waters reached anything like normal?

I now see that the Viccies are getting the short end of the wedge now.  Bloody Spaniards!

The tunnel was fine and free for the duration.

Most things back to normal

Though I suppose for the poor bastards who had a metre and a half of water through their lounge room it's not quite back to normal yet.

Decent fruit and veges are a bit expensive and scarce at some shops and they are talking about importing a lot of stuff, which will make it even more expensive..

It will be years before some people get back to normal and possibly some never will..A number of business look like going to the wall as well, same as happened in 1974...

People are still cleaning up in some of the worst hit suburbs and are still calling for money and volunteers..Of course there will never be enough money to help all those who have lost everything and already the bleating has started because the relief payments are being means tested, but unless there is an unlimited supply of money, then the govt has no other option but to apply the test...It would help immensley if the insurance company's would play fair and not indulge in all sorts of bastardry and trickery, in order to avoid paying out on lots of claims..

I'm kinda annoyed that the media coverage has stopped. It's like, oh, the waters are gone, it's all cool now.

Yeah right

We're still getting a lot of it up here.

To tell the truth ... from Brisbanes point of view there really is not a lot more to report. The clean out has been swift.

Now the company (the US Twatty part of it which is most) have sent a 4 person task force team out here for some reason and it's a bit of a (in joke) laughing point. Nice gesture and all but I'm not sure exactly what they expected to find ... maybe something along the lines of what New Orleans probably still looks like now? Shame the response there was not so quick. Anyway they went out by car yesterday to see the high water marks and were rather embarrased to see they had been cleaned up. People do that. Not Task forces. The cynics among us know exactly why they're here. I think in the case of lawyers it would be called ambulance chasing.

They're just there to keep an eye on you... they know who the troublemakers are

Nope. The US is predominantly a war machine with a directive to fuck things up then get some sort of control over resources. Coal? Uranium? Oddly enough they weren't so quick to go to Pakistan. Nothing to gain there I suppose.

Either that or they're here for a holiday on company coin.

Didn't they show up there??

All it takes is a few outlanders to poke a stick in and do a bit of stirring to get to a point where there is a real danger of the legal costs becoming a good chunk of the total clean-up costs.  A couple of years ago when we had floods in the UK, not on the same scale but just as devastating for individuals, there was a heap of legal people from the US and some of the claims courts are still going to be backed-up for the next five years with people gathering the last few pounds of iffy claims and, of course, lawyers getting richer.

Good luck to them and I hope they are community-minded enough to spend their extra money on a fatal drug overdose.

yeah they showed but other than sitting in air conditioning and eating, theres not been a real lot achieved

Oh yeah, there's already talk of class actions against the BoM for too little warning and SEQ Water for not making the water in the Wivenhoe evaporate fast enough..In the end it will all be premier Anna Bligh's fault......there's always got to be someone to blame.....

The only condemning thing I saw was someone warning the govt of the danger, with the recommendation of letting the water out of the dams in preparation. Which was ignored.

Then again, the scale of the flooding.... I don't even know if that would've helped. Would it have?

They were releasing water from the dams prior to the flooding, but this didn't happen overnight and the water was running into the dams faster than they could safely release it...The final straw that broke the camel's back was the unprecedented cloudburst over Toowoomba which raced down (and swamped) the Lockyer Valley and Ipswich, and never went anywhere near the Wivenhoe dam..The smart arses (who should know better) who are talking about Wivenhoe releases, don't take this Toowoomba event (which was a first in recorded history) into account and do their profession no favours..

Hindsight is a wonderful thing..

Ah okay. That's what I wanted to know

Always happy to be of assistance..

Here we go again, we had a cyclone slam into the Nth Q'land coast a couple of days ago and now we have an even bigger one set to hit the coast just a wee bit north of the last one..

The latest cyclone is named "Yasi" which (I am told) means "Sandalwood" in some pacific island lingo..

Yasi is a Category 4 cyclone and may well be one of the most destructive ever to hit the Qld coast..(so they say)

So stock up on bananas again folks, as this looks like being the end of this years crop..(memories of the Innisfail cyclone a few years ago)

Here's the BoM track map of Yasi...

You can click on this link to the sattelite picture and see what a fearsome creature this cyclone has become..

http://www.goes.noaa.gov/sohemi/sohemiloops/shirgmscol.html

You can see the remnants of the previous cyclone inland to the west of Brisbane...

This link is a must-see:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/special-reports/how-cyclone-yasi-compares-around-the-world/story-fn7rxoal-1225998850720

Also, I think this topic needs to be changed to "Mother Nature Hates Queensland"

I can just see the following taking place...

"Hmm... hey Queensland, here, have some big-arse floods! Oh dear, that just won't do, here, have a cyclone too... Oops, still not good enough, here, have a bigger cyclone..."

Observations for Willis Island weather station ...

http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ60801/IDQ60801.94299.shtml

Obviously the anemometer is rated to 185 km/h at which point it falls off the post. Looks like the whole station got blown away at 10am,

Some pics from Nth Qld of Cat 5 TC  Yasi....

http://www.news.com.au/pictures/gallery-e6frflv9-1225999209511?page=1

There are about 61 of them..

O M D

Am I the only one to think that from what the media is portraying, that the cyclone wasn't actually that bad?

I mean sure, if you ask anyone who went through it (ie - the people missing a house or an entire banana plantation or so), I'm sure they'd disagree, but from purely what the media is showing, it just doesn't seem like it damaged that much.

No it only damaged the roads, the railway lines, the bridges, the telephone infrastructure, the electricity infrastructure, the banana plantations and cane farms,(the Babinda sugar mill will be permantly closed as a result) the NQ tourism industry, millions of dollars worth of boats, the fishing industry, certain parts of the mining industry, and so on, and so on..Some of the farmers who have just recovered from Cyclone Larry a few years ago are talking of walking away from their properties...Babinda will become a ghost town because of the sugar mill closure, as that is the main reason for the town being there..It will be many years before NQ fully recovers from 'Yasi', and the cyclone season isn't over yet...

The damage was bad. I think the media coverage wasn't as extensive as the floods

Yeah thats what I meant. The media are mainly showing us houses that haven't blown away, and talking about how Larry made them better prepared, the houses were built to code, etc etc. So what were seeing in Darwin may be completely different to the rest of the country.

As far as the news here goes, the only damage that was sustained was minor wind damage to stobie poles, street signs, awnings, and other minor structural damage. They showed us the main street of Cardwell and all the shops still had their roofs and the windows were all intact. A few trees here and there, an odd bit of road washed away, but nothing looked that bad.

Andro, I'm not saying that the extensive damage was non-existent, I'm just a bit shoccked at the media's (lack of) coverage of it, because from where I see it, it seemed very surprising to see that the only images that we were shown were of barely minimal damage. I couldn't believe that was all that happened. So obviously reports vary from state to state.

The news up here was almost casual remarks.  They opened the report with a weather forecaster who droned on about the cyclone speed and direction and how it then then caught everyone off guard with a landfall in a different place to that feared and that the storm surge was made largely impotent by the cyclone arriving at low tide.  They did remark on how well prepared everyone was for the cyclone.  Even asked some residents of Cairns and Townsville if they felt that all the pre-storm hype was justified.

Almost sounded like the biggest beach barbie ever.  And then the news went on to something really serious about government cuts and some politicain or other being dragged in front of the beak for fiddling expenses.  In fact the newsies were almost apoplectic about how they were cheated out of another big story about mass deaths and abject suffering - and all by a freak of nature!.

Amazing journalism, Pulitzer prizes all round for this one I think.

Fuckwits!

yep

Yeah, you must've got the same news I did Arthur, that's exactly how Darwin received it too.

Stupid media. Also, bushfires, floods, and cyclones, and all they can talk about is the situation in Egypt and Shane Warne's love-life. Yes. Shane Warne's love-life makes breaking news here in Australia, while the rest of the country is suffering. *groan*

Seems like it's Darwin's turn now.

According to the BoM website, between 9am Tuesday and now (4am wednesday) we have had approx 320mm of continuous rainfall. The wind is howling around at 120km/h, blowing branches off trees and well just dumping shit everywhere in general. Most of the main roads have been closed due to flooding or potential flooding, and we have been cautioned about driving anywhere unless it's absolutely necessary. At the moment, it's only a low pressure system (999hP), but is expected to form into a tropical cyclone in the next few hours. Currently sitting over land about 40km from my house, and is expected to move North and over the Tiwi Islands. Once it moves over water it becomes very unpredictable, with intensity building and direction becoming harder to estimate. I will get some pictures in a couple of hours when it goes daylight and post for you.

What our Chief Minister (equiv of the state premier) is worried about is that people in Darwin take things so lightly. Especially after seeing what happened to Qld's cat 5 storm, we think "oh its just a cat 1, we'll be fine" .. yes, it may be a "small cyclone" but it's still a friggin cyclone lol!!

I'm with the CM on this one... people won't take it seriously, esp after seeing the footage of the very apparently-minimally-damaging big cyclone that hit qld.

I have everything I need, so I'll be fine. Should move on by late morning, however there's no knowing what it'll do once it goes over water. I've decided I'm going to stay in my house until a mid-cat-3 system, after that, i'll be legging it out of town (provided I can get through the floods lol)

http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2011/02/15/212791_ntnews.html

http://tools.ntnews.com.au/photo-gallery/photo_gallery_popup_preview.php?splash=1&category_id=3445

Note, those pics are all from yesterday. Conditions got worse over night.

Oh dear, keep safe Morgan..

I see they've now named it TC Carlos..

Cat 1 cyclones can be just as scary as bigger ones and can still do damage if you are in their path..

By the looks of the BoM track map it is expected to move towards the south west, but as you said, they can be unpredictable at times..

It's been going for a whole day now hasn't it?

How you doing Morgan?

Yep. Cyclone stayed over us for about a day and a half. Was very windy and rained a lot. Most roads were flooded and fallen trees and debris lined the streets and also took out a few houses.  A couple of suburbs got flooded and some people were evacuated from their homes. Power out to more than 5000 homes, which has mostly been restored now. Worst thing about the cyclone is that it didn't know which way it was going. First it came west, then it moved north, then east, then northeast, then south, then west, then southwest, then south, then northwest, then southwest again and kept going. It's still raining a lot, hasn't really stopped at all. Over the week we've had over one thousand mm of rain. Most people had two days off work, and eveyone is expected to be back at work today, since the cyclone is no longer a threat. The BoM people say if the cyclone goes west there is a slight chance that it may re-form in Joseph Bonaparte Gulf and come back if it is pushed up by another system in the south, however this is very unlikely so we don't need to worry. Everything is ok. I'm sure it won't be the last cyclone we see this season.

Oh well, the main thing is that you're ok Morgan..

Whoa... crazy cyclone

Has all this died down now?  How is the clean-up progressing?  I guess the "I told you so" pundits are making hay...

I dunno anything.

All I know is that the floods were great for the river system, and that I'll be going to Qld some time this year to contribute to their economy.

You don't have to. As of next financial year, there will be a 'flood levy' which is coming out of everyones tax.

That's ok.

The flood levy doesn't come up to much from what I heard.

Plus It's always nicer to get away than think about paying tax