In the Eye of the Storm

Last evening I wrote about how a particular storm was "coming to get us"
We scored a hit, here in the Southern Highlands of NSW, and our colleagues just to the north - in the George's River catchment.

I have received 86 mm of rain overnight.

The southern edge of Sydney is on flood alert - Menangle, Liverpool, Engadine, Wolli Creek, and Audley Weir in the Royal National Park is closed (though it goes out at regular intervals). I have just heard that the Nerriga Road has water across the road, 4 Km south from the village. There are no warning signs and no police there, apparently. Jerrara Dam (water storage for Kiama - between Kiama and Jamberoo) is on "Orange Alert" - indicating a possibility of some prospect of inundation. Apparently an alert system is in place, for persons living down stream for the Dam.

I repeat the comments made previously, please do not cross any flooded roads.

There have been landslips on the Moss Vale Road (into Kangaroo Valley). A Policeman apparently was assisting with the clean up, when the road edge gave way while he was there. He was carried down the hillside some 30 metres. Radio reports said he ended up being saved by vines entangling him, and preventing him slip further. He was eventually rescued at about 3:00am, and taken to Nowra Hospital. At least he came out of it OK.

There have been rock falls on Macquarie Pass, but the road is said to be open - one may drive down the Pass with caution.

Here is the RTA "Traffic Live" web page screenshot.

Traffic Live site 8 March 2012.

If you go to the Traffic Live webpage where you may check local conditions. The blue icons will open up a box telling you the local details. Around the Upper Lachlan, and Goulburn-Mulwarree Shires, and of course, further down river at Forbes and further south at Wagga, lists of flooded roads will appear for your information.

It is a useful site to store, for future reference.

The strong winds accompanying this storm worry me more than the rain. Not that I have many huge trees on my block, but I would not like to try to take any of the main roads in and out of Robertson today. Huge trees get loosed in the wet soil, and can come down.

This is what is driving this weather.

 The high has move east since last night, and the low is sitting off Bega, dumping rain onto us and Sydney.

You can update your information from the Weather Bureau's Barometric Chart page

Its coming to get us.

This is the Wednesday evening Radar Picture 

of rain heading our way. 

It has already started in Robertson 

and it is heading to Sydney and the Hunter.

This is the result of the fabled "East Coast Low" 

which the Weather Bureau has been promising us for days.

This is current, as at 8:30PM (more or less) 7 March 2012
The yellow indicated intense rainfall.
The rain is heading back in off the coast.

This is a picture of Alex, the Weatherzone guy, on Sunday, explaining to the Victorians and southern NSW people where all their rain had come from - straight down from the Tropics.

The Bureau has been predicting that that weather pattern would intensify and move back north, up the coast.

That is exactly what the first image shows is happening outside my Study window, right now.

There is a big High Pressure cell east of Tasmania.
It is holding the "front" - a line of low pressure air, right along the NSW Coast.
That air circulates in an anti-clockwise pattern, bringing moist air and rain in onto us.

Bureau's Barometric chart 7 March 2012

I would like to acknowledge the interesting reporting by Joy, when writing about Spiders in the Wagga Wagga area. She provided the basic links which I have subsequently followed and expanded upon.

Her story is more interesting than mine - I love a quirky weather and spider story.
But what I have written now is more pertinent to what is happening outside my window, as I write.

Incidentally, the Robbo Show is on this Friday and Saturday, and even if it stops raining now, it is is going to be wet underfoot. If it keep raining (as the Bureau is suggesting), we will all be like drowned rats.

But the show will go on - it always does.

And we will all have a good time - we always do.

Severe Weather Warning - Metropolitan, South Coast, Illawarra and Hunter

I have no idea if this will eventuate here (in the Southern Highlands), but if it does, then with the country as wet as it is already, there will be massive "run-off" flows.  As I look out my window it is simply grey. The Bureau's Radar chart shows rain off the coast, heading northwards, towards Port Stephens and the Hunter and Mid North coast.

Issued at 4:27 pm EDT on Tuesday 6 March 2012.

It is sudden heavy rain after prolonged rain (which we have had) which causes floods in this area, and especially on the coast below here (e.g., Albion Park), or on the flood plains around Moss Vale and Bowral.

Careful how you go, folks.

Crossing flooded causeways and rivers is a No-No.

Denis Wilson

The rest is the Official Severe Weather Warning, from the Weather Bureau

Severe Weather Warning
for heavy rain
for people in the Metropolitan, South Coast, Illawarra and Hunter forecast districts

Issued at 4:27 pm EDT on Tuesday 6 March 2012.

Weather Situation

A trough will deepen over the central Tasman Sea during Wednesday afternoon as a high passes to the south. A low developing within the trough is expected to move toward central parts of the New South Wales coast overnight Wednesday and early Thursday, although it's exact path is currently uncertain. The system is expected to move away from the region later on Thursday.

During Wednesday afternoon and evening, showers are expected to increase to rain periods about coastal parts of the Metropolitan, South Coast, Illawarra and Hunter forecast districts. Localised areas of heavy rain, with possible thunder, may lead to flash flooding.

Flood Warnings remains current for several rivers. Refer to www.bom.gov.au/nsw/warnings for current flood information.

The State Emergency Service advises that people should:

• Don't drive, ride or walk through flood water.
• Keep clear of creeks and storm drains.
• If you are trapped by flash flooding, seek refuge in the highest available place and ring 000 if you need rescue.

For emergency help in floods and storms, ring your local SES Unit on 132 500.

The next warning will be issued by 11:00 pm EDT Tuesday.

Source: Bureau of Meteorology Severe Weather Warning

Caper White Butterflies have taken over

In the last week and a half, Robertson has had a break of hot steamy weather (at least in the mornings) then thunderstorms or rain, or sometimes even cold drizzle and mist (as now). Point is it has been very humid.
The locals say this is "getting back to normal" for Robbo. What has changed, that which I have noticed, anyway is the arrival here of the Caper White Butterflies. (Belenois java)

Something of a lucky shot.
Click to enlarge.
You can see the rolled up proboscis being unfurled
as the insect prepares to feed.

Yes, we still get the lots of the introduced pest Cabbage White Butterflies (Pieris rapae) because Wild Turnip is a prolific weed here. It is a member of the "Cabbage family" and they are all host plants for that Butterfly.

The other Butterfly we are also noticing, with the bright ochre and cream patches in its wings, is the "Yellow Admiral" (Vanessa itea) . Back to the Caper Whites - one of their little mysteries is why they undergo huge migrations which take them away from their "food plants". Like many Butterflies, the adults can feed on on nectar from a variey of plants.

Here the Butterfly is seeking nectar from a Westringia.But the Caterpillars are not so adjustable, and need specific plant families to successfully draw their nourishment from (as Caterpillars).

Females have a large area of black
around the edge of the upperside of the wings.

Don Herbison-Evans says (on his wonderful Lepidopteran website): "The food plants only grow wild in the northern two-thirds of continent, including: # Brisbane, # New South Wales, and parts of # South Australia. In spite of this, the Caper White butterfly frequently migrates south in summer.

In October 1998, mass migrations occurred in Sydney. Such migrations to Victoria happen sporadically. Migrations to Melbourne for example have been observed in November and in January. There are only a few Caper trees in Melbourne, and it is interesting that the butterflies locate these particular trees and lay eggs on them. How the butterflies find these few trees is unclear."

He adds: "The male and female Caper White butterflies appear to migrate separately."

Later in the same day as when I took the first images, I was at Mount Gibraltar, and I noticed a chase sequence.

A male Caper White Butterfly
(note the fine black border to the wings)
chasing a female.Well, the do seem to find eachother,
even if they catch different planes (so to speak)
as they fly south,
to our cooler climate.
Even if our area is without food for the caterpillars,
clearly it doesn't deter them from attempting to mate.

This male did not manage to achieve the normal "position".
The female flew away, with the male still in hot pursuit.

"Tale est vita"
(Such is Life).

Hailing White Stones out of a Black Sky

This afternoon, a sudden weather change brought a wall of cloud up out of Kangaroo Valley. That grey cloud wall met another black cloud just above Robertson, and bang, it was on for young and old.

My brother Brendan and I shut the windows and doors, and dragged under cover on the front verandah any tools and some picture rails which I had just painted. Just in time too.

Suddenly, the sound of hammering started.
Hail.
Large hails stones were not just falling
they were lashing the garden and the house roof.

The front yard turned white in moments.

I rushed out to Brendan's car, to retrieve my camera, and I suddenly realised how dangerous it is to try to run across hail stones, for once they pack down, it is like a bed of pure white ball bearings. I managed to walk back down the gentle slope in front of the house without slipping and falling over, but only by hanging on to a branch from a small tree in front of the house. That little sapling in the centre of the image
saved me from falling.

Here are some photos of the hail on the back deck.

And a zoomed image of the hail against the little step on the deck.
You can see the particle size, average 8mm in diameter,
but some as large as 12 mm.
Not huge, but a great hail storm, none the less..

And this is the Weather Bureau Radar Map
from Terry Hills (north Sydney)
The regular 128 Km Sydney Radar - from Appin
was not functioning.

You can judge the intensity of the storm.So much excitement from a 15 minute storm.

To celebrate the painting of the corridor
and the reproduction of dark green picture rails
(for which I did all the mitre cuts on the drop-saw)
I decided to celebrate with a glass of Absinthe.

I commented to Brendan that I didn't have any ice in the freezer,
and he laughed and said there heaps of it on the back deck.
And of course he was right.

So several moments later,
I was out scooping up the fresh "heavenly ice"
and adding the Absinthe
to create the perfect "Green Fairy".
A cocktail - served courtesy of the Great Bartender in the Sky!
How Cool is that?
Chilling out - now off to bed.

First ducklings of the year in Robbo.

On a warm balmy winters day (it surely felt like Spring) I was lucky to find the first clutch of the Australian Wood Duck (Chenonetta jubata) ducklings, today. No doubt it was by chance that today was a warm balmy day for these little guys to be paddling around with their parents. After all, even if they had hatched last week (quite probably) the parents had mated some time before. They have an incubation period of approximately 28 days, plus the large clutch size (there are 10 ducklings in this clutch) means some 38 to 40 days between first egg being laid and the fledging of the chicks.

The male Wood Duck has a dark brown head, and fine silvery body.
The female has a paler brown head, white eye marking,
and heavy flecks on the abdomen and flanks.

So their seasonal timing is great, but the particular weather today is surely fortuitous. But we could all enjoy the good weather together.

As is typical of Wood Duck pairs, the mother duck leads the ducklings away from danger, while the father is keeping himself between the ducklings and danger (me and my camera).
I know this "macho" behaviour is a cliche, and I risk lapsing into an anthropomorphic interpretation of animal behaviour, but I always find this behaviour totally endearing.

The male is standing guard.
He is on the right, and closer to danger than the ducklings.

Interestingly, the last time I saw a Wood Duck family, it was the male which led the way for the family, rather than standing between the ducklings and danger. That sighting was on 8 September 2007, nearly 3 weeks later in the season than today's sighting. Both were on pools beside the Moss Vale Road. Today's sighting was below Burrawang. The previous one, just beyond Sheepwash Road. So they were only 2 kilometres apart.

And here is a sure sign of a late winter day - a Wattle tree in full bloom.

"Green Wattle" - Acacia decurrens - in my yard - image taken this morning.

Brumby tries to blame the weather for Power Outages

Well, if you have seen yesterday's post then this is more of the same. Except for this report from the Sydney Morning Herald.

John Brumby is claiming this is beyond control, because of the weather. Wrong, Mr Brumby.

Sure it is hot - we acknowledge that.
People do not blame the Government for that.

But the planning laws allow sub-divisions to squeeze the maximum possible number of large houses on small blocks. That means NO trees for shade, Mr Brumby. No builder would dream of building a veranda around a new house, because that would be too "costly". So they plan for air conditioners in all new homes.

Mr Brumby and his Government know these simple facts. But they ignore it, and blame the weather.

My eldest brother was born in a Melbourne heat wave. (2 March 1940, I believe, if anyone wishes to check the weather records.) Babies in the maternity ward were draped in moist towels, to prevent them dehydrating. None of this in new, Mr Brumby.

What is new is the way Governments have allowed Business to build buildings (large and small) which regard the climate as the Enemy, to be fought against. Instead of something to be worked within. I wrote earlier this evening, of ancient Roman buildings, with shaded colonnades surrounding a central atrium, with a small fountain in the middle. Buildings like that work in our Climate, but nobody builds them. Even old country farm houses, with their shade verandas work much better than McMansions, with a double garage fronting the street, blocking out light and air.

If one chooses to fight nature, as the Government and business have done, then, there is a cost - and in this case it is air conditioning. Modern houses are build on the assumption that air conditioning will be installed. And air conditioning requires lots of energy.

Electricity supply systems are meant to be built to peak load standards. Clearly they are failing, in Victoria. The system did not fail because there was an explosion in a power line. That is facile rubbish, Mr Brumby.

The system failed because it was overloaded, and it was overloaded because it was inadequate in its design parameters, Mr Brumby. It was inadequate for the task - as you appear to be, Mr Brumby.And yet, in view of this chaos, you still want to build a Desalination Plant in Wonthaggi, Mr Brumby?

This Desal Plant will be the largest single consumer of electricity in Victoria to be built since Rupert Hamer did a dirty deal to allow Alcoa to build the Aluminium Smelter in Portland - and Hamer arranged for the SEC to run electricity supplies all the length of Victoria to power - just to suit his brother, who was on the Board of Alcoa. Ah, those were the good old days!

Back to the present. How are you going to power this proposed Desal Plant, Mr Brumby? How will you run that and keep the lights on in the rest of Victoria, Mr Brumby?
As I said yesterday, it is simply not necessary anyway. Check out the Watershed Victoria website, to see why.

Tasmanians - please keep your weather at home

Beloved Taswegians, please keep your awful weather to yourselves.

We do not want it here, in middle NSW (or for any Tolkeinists, should that be "Middle Earth" or "The Shire"?)

Thanks to the magic of the Bureau of Meteorology's website, you can see there is a high pressure system parked just west of Tasmania, with a low out in the Tasman Sea - and that gives direct northerly winds between both systems. That chart is from two days ago (5 am, 22/10/08)

We here in Robertson have shivered for the last 3 days. By chance (not really) I awoke shivering in my bed. I was really cold. I happened to glance at my handy indoor/outdoor thermometer (in the corner of my bedroom) just to see what was going on. It was showing 3 degrees Celsius outside. It gave me a generous reading of 5 degrees inside. That is to be expected in July, but not mid October. Plus it has been "windy as...." - by then a howling gale had arrived.

Our cousins in Katoomba got a dusting of snow. Better them than me, I guess, but then, they are much higher than we are. We are at 750 metres (2460 feet) above sea level - they are about 1000 metres (3280 feet). However, there is always a "happy snap" to take if it does snow. (Linked image - horses at play in Mt Lambie area (near Lithgow) - Nick Moir - SMH) We didn't get that opportunity. But having experienced snow here for 4 days once, I am not all that keen to repeat that exercise.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported it in this fashion:

"A low pressure system over the Tasman sea had the effect of sucking up frigid air from Australia's south, delivering a record breaking cold snap and even snow to highland areas across NSW.

"Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Jake Phillips said it was the coldest two days, back to back, in an October since 1973. With the cold temperatures came blustery winds and intermittent showers."

By one of those ironies of Google-based advertising on Internet websites, the SMH story about Sydney's "Tasmanian-style" weather, they carried this advertisement - right next to the lead paragraph.

These photos taken late on Tuesday afternoon (21 October) - (just as the weather arrived) show the fog closing in, from out of Kangaroo Valley (south from my house).

To get a better idea of the contrast from the normal late afternoon view - click on this link.

4:40 pm
Power stanchion outlined against the wave of fog rolling up the valley.

4:43:10pm
Power stanchion silhouette barely visible

4:43:34pm (24 seconds later)
What power stanchion?

The fog really did roll in as quickly as these timed photographs show:- the power stanchion which is a mere 300 metres away, disappeared from sight- within in 3 minutes. In particular a thick wave of fog blocked it out completely in the last 24 seconds between those last two frames (above). Thank heavens for the mysterious data stored by digital cameras, right down to the second in which the image is taken.

An hour later, all I could see was the trees at 50 metres distance - all else had disappeared.

5:40pm

After the fog rolled in, the evening was followed by a severe weather front, accompanied by strong winds, and rain. Robertson topped the State (again) with 23 mm of rain overnight that night.

To my beloved fellow Tasmanian Bloggers - if that's your idea of weather - please keep it to yourselves. (Nothing personal Mosura, et al - please forgive a little "literary licence" being exercised. With weather like this - we have to blame somebody.)

Waratahs and intense blue skies

Today was a day of intense blue skies, and high, swirling, light clouds in Robertson.The strikingly brilliant light made the Waratah flower growing at the Robertson CTC seem especially bright. This plant was one of a group planted as part of a "working bee" of young mothers and their kids at the CTC, held 3 years ago.
This was how some of the clouds looked, a few minutes after I took the Waratah photos.
Looking down into the flower, you see the central "florets" (which are technically individual flowers) protected within the surrounding brilliant red bracts.
This is the same flower which I photographed two weeks ago, as the bud was developing. As I had hoped, the flower which looked like it was in danger of burning, has in fact developed its true brilliant red colour. This is a seedling plant which I was given by Paul Nixon, arguably the greatest expert on the NSW Waratah. It is a true representative of the species - Telopea speciosissima.

I shall publish some photos of some of the more successful garden varieties of Waratahs, in a few days. They are more floriferous, but the individual flowers are not quite so spectacular. But as garden plants, there is no question which ones work better - in terms of overall display.

Red Mud falling from the sky.

On Tuesday morning, 16 September 2008, the cars of Robertson were covered in a smattering of fine red mud. Over night winds had brought red dust from somewhere to the south and west (it was not Robertson dust). I had seen this storm coming in as a black line of cloud, just on sunset, as I was going in to Bowral on Monday evening. Then, overnight, there was a brief shower of rain (as often happens in Robertson). It rained mud.
Here are some images of the bonnet of my car, spattered with the now dry dust blobs, which clearly fell as muddy rain drops over night.
The grains of mud or dust, were not very fine, and felt like red sand to me - such as one might expect to find in Mildura, or the Victorian mallee. Robertson's red basalt soil creates much finer dust. The windy weather we experienced had been blowing in Victoria and southern NSW for two days before our little mud storm arrived.

Big Potato with Daffodils

Spring continues here in Robertson, but with blustery winds today.
The daffodils planted around the Big Potato, courtesy of Jill Keft of the Robertson Village Nursery, and the Robertson Chamber of Commerce, have all burst into flower over the last few warm days.At the back of the field where the Big Potato is located, there is a female Mudlark sitting on her clutch of eggs. Last week I saw 3 Currawongs perched around this bird, but obviously they have not yet gone in for a feed, as she is sitting on something - presumably eggs.

Female Mudlark, with white face and white beak just visible
Her white tail is visible on the right.
sitting on eggs in her mud nest.
They collect mud to build the nest -
that's what gives them their name.

It will be much more difficult when the eggs have hatched, and the adults need to feed the (juicy) young. These birds have selected their nest site very carefully, as there is a branch immediately over the top of the nest (protecting them from an overhead attack), and there is also a stiff branch about 6 inches (approx 125 mm) behind the nest (to the right), giving the nest protection from a rear attack. Lets hope their strategy works. But they will not be able to leave the nest defenceless, as this female did when I arrived under the tree. Currawongs work very quickly when attacking nestlings.
As the sky was clear in Robertson I went out to Ocean View to catch the view over Shell Harbour and Lake Illawarra. Unfortunately the sky out over the Ocean was a little hazy.This is looking out over Macquarie Pass - with Mt Macquarie the cliffline visible to the left. Knights Hill is to the right.The field in the foreground is on basalt soil. Beyond that - in the middle distance, is the natural forest on the escarpment top edge (on sandstone - which is why it was never cleared for farming). Macquarie Pass runs from just to the left of screen, down underneath the visible clifflines, and then out to the centre ground, at Albion Park and then Shell Harbour. The Pacific Ocean is on the horizon.

A fairy tale morning in Robertson.

I told you it would be white! It was like a fairy tale morning in Robertson.
The freak weather conditions of snow, sleet and rain, followed closely by a hard frost, made for some gorgeous images of "snice" on leaves and flowers. It also serves to give me a new weather word - "Snice" A combination of snow and ice. It sounds better that the ugly word "snost".

It seems there was not just rain which fell, and froze, which is what I thought last night. People told me today that there was snow and sleet as well as some rain. This is evident in the granules visible on the lower levels of the windscreen of my little blue car. It obviously did fall as crystals, not drops of rain - which would not build up like that.

Here is Lena - looking cold - on the frozen driveway.

The ice on the water in a spare Rubbish Bin shows you it was pretty cold. Ice crystals always make for pretty images - no matter how mundane the container is.

"Snice" on Sasanqua Camellia leaves
- with the first rays of sunlight just touching the leaves.

"Snice" on Polyscias sambucifolia leaves."Snice" on Wattle leaves (Acacia fimbriata "dwarf")

"Snice" on Acacia flower stem
Close-up of "snice" on Acacia flowers.

Of course, such fairytale crystals do not last long in Robertson. I knew it would be worth looking out for, so I set my alarm for an early start. I then went back to bed to warm up, and to recover from a very long night on the computer. I have today posted an important submission on the Kangaloon Aquifer. More about that later.