Catastrophic bushfire weather hits South Australia

[Looks like 2011 will be the year of Hell and High Water for Australia.] ABCSat Jan 1, 2011 10:55am AEDT Fire warnings remain in place across South Australia, though a cool change has removed the threat of catastrophic conditions. The weather bureau says temperatures started to fall across South Australia with the arrival of a […]

Video: Australia floods extend across Queensland

Flooding across Australia’s northeast is continuing to cause chaos and shows no sign of abating. The country’s now recorded its wettest spring, causing six major river systems in Queensland state to burst their banks. An area bigger than France and Germany combined has been affected, with some 22 towns across the state inundated, leaving some […]

Floods cover vast area of northeast Australia

By Bruce Hextall; Editing by Robert Birsel31 Dec 2010 SYDNEY (Reuters) – Floodwater rose across a vast area in Australia’s northeast on Friday, inundating 22 towns, forcing 200,000 residents out of their homes, and closing a major sugar export port. Flooding has already shut coal mines in Queensland state and its biggest coal export port, […]

Hundreds flee as Australia floods worsen – ‘Disaster on an unprecedented scale’

By Torsten BlackwoodThu Dec 30, 3:22 am ET BUNDABERG, Australia (AFP) – Hundreds of people fled worsening floods in Australia’s rural northeast Thursday as officials warned the disaster may last for weeks, prompting fears over food shortages and disease outbreaks. The latest evacuees, including 100 residents air-lifted from one town, join over 1,000 moved earlier, […]

Video: Australia’s ‘worst floods in more than half a century’

29 December 2010 North-eastern Australia’s worst flooding in decades is continuing to cause chaos across the region. There have so far been five flood related deaths in the last month. Rural towns west of Brisbane have been cut off, and crops have been damaged. The overall cost from flood damage is expected to exceed one […]

Flooded Australia state braces itself for more rain – ‘We haven't seen it like this before, and I’m 72’

By Erik Jensen and Daniel HurstDecember 29, 2010 THE worst floods in half a century have inundated towns across Queensland, forcing the evacuation of entire communities as dams larger than Sydney Harbour threaten to breach their banks. In Chinchilla, 300 kilometres north-west of Brisbane, the local hospital and at least 20 homes have been evacuated. […]

Summer snow and floods in weird Australia weather

Torrential rains across eastern Australia have left some towns flooded while the southern state of Tasmania has been hit by an unusual flurry of summer snow. The Associated PressDecember 27, 2010 SYDNEY — Torrential rains across eastern Australia have left some towns flooded while the southern state of Tasmania has been hit by an unusual […]

20 most popular stories of 2010

Here are 2010’s most-viewed stories on Desdemona. A few have had further developments since they were posted, and I’ve noted this where appropriate.  Not surprisingly, the most popular event was the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, with seven entries (that’s why this post is about the top twenty stories, instead of the top ten). Six of […]

Maps predict sea level rise for Australia cities

Wed Dec 15, 2010 11:57am AEDT (ABC) Rising sea levels are likely to cause serious and regular flooding in Australian coastal cities by the end of the century, according to maps released by the Federal Government today. The maps for low-lying areas in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Newcastle, the New South Wales’ central coast and south-east […]

Peak Humanitarian Aid

Peak Humanitarian Aid: The period during which accelerating climate crises overwhelm the capacity of industrial civilization to handle them. Has this peak arrived, along with the others? The July 2010 flood catastrophe in Pakistan suggests that it has. The United Nations reports that the scale of the flood damage is larger than the combined damage […]

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