Ducks' Weather Lasts Forever ☔️

In order to distract you from your focus on Ukraine and COVID-19, spare a thought for many of us in Australia's South-East Queensland, where we are in the middle of a prolonged rain event, which has been described as a ‘Rain Bomb’. The image below, captured from local news feeds, summarises much of the chaos being experienced, as of today, Sunday 27 Feb 2022.

It is estimated that more than 1,400 homes in Brisbane alone have been flooded to date (mostly, but not exclusively, in suburbs closer to the Brisbane River and near other main streams and rivers in the area), with more rain yet to come in the next few days.  

To get some idea of the extent of this unique event, take a look at the following:

1. Only 3 days ago Wivenhoe Dam (our major and largest water storage dam) was at a level of “59% of drinking water capacity,” but has risen today to 160%.  
2. Flooding has occurred, and is continuing, in areas north of Gympie (located over 200km north of Brisbane) down to the Gold Coast (some 100km south of Brisbane).
3. Over 1.4 metres (55 inches) of rain has been recorded in some parts of the area, over the last 72 hours.
4. Nearly 1,000 roads are closed across the region.  These include the main coastal highways north and south.
5. Many trains, including those from Brisbane north to the Sunshine Coast, are not operating.
6. The Wivenhoe Dam spillway was opened earlier today, in order to release excess water, and it is expected that dam discharge will take about 24 hours to reach Brisbane, thus propagating the flood situation.

This is a slow moving system that is heading southwards to NSW (which will be hit next) and will most likely impact the majority of Australia's eastern seaboard. Only a couple of years back we experienced record bushfire conditions and now the weather patterns have swung the other way, back to our previous one in a hundred year major flood event in 2011.  Scientists have been warning us for years that our world will experience more severe and extreme severe weather patterns and storms, as a consequence of climate change.  

While you think of what we all need to do in order to climb aboard the ‘Climate Change Combat Express’, currently leaving from a station close to you, take a look at some photos below that I've reproduced from various local news sources.

And finally, here's an informative collage, produced by the Climate Council of Australia, to provide more food for thought and, for those who may be inclined, for further research.

Disasters:

• It never rains but it pours; and, 
• No smoke without fire.

What say you people?

Incidentally, don't worry about me.  As luck would have it, we reside in an area that is not, fortunately, prone to flooding, at least for now.

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When not researching the weird or the wonderful, the comical or the cultured, the sinful or the serious, I chase my creative side, the results of which can be seen as selected photographs of my travels on my website at:

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The author of the above, Ken Boddie, besides being a sometime poet and occasional writer, is an enthusiastic photographer, rarely leisure-travelling without his Canon, and loves to interact with other like-minded people with diverse interests.

Ken's three day work week (part time commitment) as a consulting engineer allows him to follow his photography interests, and to plan trips to an ever increasing list of countries and places of scenic beauty and cultural diversity.