19 August 2018 (BBC News) – Large numbers of emus have been flocking to an outback mining town in New South Wales as Australia continues to struggle with extreme drought. The flightless birds are desperately searching for food and water in Broken Hill, local animal rescue services say. “They’re actually walking down our main street. […]
16 August 2018 (BBC News) – Emergency crews in Australia are battling unseasonal bushfires which have erupted across drought-stricken New South Wales (NSW). Almost 80 fires were burning along the state’s coast on Thursday, having ripped through more than 1,000 hectares in recent days. No lives or homes were in immediate danger, according to officials. […]
By Lisa Cox 15 August 2018 SYDNEY (The Guardian) – At first the smoke on the horizon “didn’t look like anything major,” says Joe Mercieca of that day in 2013. But then the wind picked up. His house in the Blue Mountains, an hour and a half out of Sydney, was soon surrounded by the […]
By Jonathan Watts and Elle Hunt 13 August 2018 (The Guardian) – Imagine a city at 50C (122F). The pavements are empty, the parks quiet, entire neighbourhoods appear uninhabited. Nobody with a choice ventures outside during daylight hours. Only at night do the denizens emerge, HG Wells-style, into the streets – though, in temperatures that […]
By Lauren E. James 8 August 2018 (National Geographic) – Half of the Great Barrier Reef has been bleached to death since 2016. Mass coral bleaching, a global problem triggered by climate change, occurs when unnaturally hot ocean water destroys a reef’s colorful algae, leaving the coral to starve. The Great Barrier Reef illustrates how […]
By Lucy Middleton 8 August 2018 (Metro) – Hundreds of thirsty cows swarm a water truck in new footage that shows the real impact of Australia’s biggest drought in decades. The shocking drone footage comes as 100 percent of the state of New South Wales was declared to be drought-affected.Farmer Amber Lea, who shared the […]
1 August 2018 (Bureau of Meteorology) – Rainfall was very much below average for most of New South Wales in July 2018, except in the northeast. Daytime temperatures were very much warmer than average, while night time temperatures were mostly cooler than average, including areas of coldest on record in parts of the northwest. Much […]
By Cate Swannell 30 July 2018 (MJA) – Farmers who are under 35 years of age, both live and work on a farm, are experiencing greater financial hardship, and are in outer regional, remote, or very remote New South Wales, more frequently report personal drought-related stress (PDS), according to research published by the Medical Journal […]
By Mandy Freund, Ben Henley, Kathryn Allen, and Patrick Baker 1 May 2018 (The Conversation) – Australia is a continent defined by extremes, and recent decades have seen some extraordinary climate events. But droughts, floods, heatwaves, and fires have battered Australia for millennia. Are recent extreme events really worse than those in the past? In […]
By Jessie Yeung 8 August 2018(CNN) – Australia relaxed rules about shooting kangaroos in New South Wales (NSW) Wednesday as the state was declared “100 percent in drought” after months of little or no rain.Less than 10 millimeters of rain fell in the state in July, the fifth-driest on record, putting further pressure on dwindling […]
