Australia floods highlight record rainfall
CBC News
Friday, January 7, 2011 | 3:50 PM ET Severe flooding in eastern Australia that forced thousands of people to flee their homes ended one of the wettest years ever recorded. The second half of 2010 was the rainiest since record-keeping began in 1900, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology reported [pdf] in its annual climate statement Friday. Overall, the year was the wettest since 2000 and the third-wettest on record. Queensland, the northeastern state inundated by Australia’s worst flood in decades, has just come out of its rainiest December on record. Tropical rains began just before Christmas and poured down for days, flooding an area the size of France and Germany combined. The waters destroyed 1,200 homes in 40 communities and damaged 11,000 others, affecting around 200,000 people. Police say 10 people have died in swollen rivers or floodwaters since late November. The flooding has shut 40 coal mines in Queensland, and damaged crops such as wheat, mangoes and sugar cane. State Premier Anna Blight estimated that the price of rebuilding homes, businesses and infrastructure, coupled with economic losses, could be as high as $5 billion. Many Queensland residents returned to their sludge-covered homes Friday as others still waited more than a week after murky brown waters spilled over their riverbanks, forcing about 4,000 from their homes. …
Australian floods highlight record rainfall
From the report [pdf]: Late November and December 2010 were extremely wet through much of eastern Australia. Four major rain events affected large parts of the eastern states during this period, resulting in widespread flooding on many rivers, especially in Queensland and New South Wales. The most severe flooding, which in terms of extent, impact and severity was the most significant in Australia since at least the 1970s, occurred in Queensland and far northern and central western New South Wales in the last week of December, with downstream impacts continuing into January. Earlier in the month, there was also substantial flooding in various parts of the eastern states, especially in the Murrumbidgee and Lachlan catchments of inland New South Wales. It was the wettest December on record for Queensland and for eastern Australia as a whole, the second-wettest for the Murray-Darling Basin, the sixth-wettest for Victoria and the eighth-wettest for New South Wales. For Australia as a whole it was the third-wettest December on record. This followed an extremely wet spring, the wettest on record for Queensland, New South Wales, eastern Australia and the Murray-Darling Basin. The heavy late November and December rainfall followed a very wet July to October for Australia, meaning many catchments were already wet before the flooding rain. It was Australia’s wettest July to October on record and also the wettest July to December on record. The rains of late 2010 have taken place during a very strong La Niña event in the Pacific Ocean. The December Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) was +27.1, the highest December value on record and the highest monthly value since 1973, whilst other indicators of La Niña also indicate the strongest event since at least the mid-1970s. Previous strong La Niña events, such as those of 1974 and 1955, have also been associated with widespread and severe flooding in eastern Australia. Sea surface temperatures off the Queensland coast in recent months have also been at or near record levels.
