(AAP) — Australia has recorded its hottest six months ever, and is well on track to have the second hottest year since records began, the Bureau of Meteorology says. The World Meteorological Organisation’s annual climate statement released today at Copenhagen found temperatures in 2009 reached 0.44 degrees above the 1961-1990 annual average. “The decade 2000-2009 […]
A major cull of camels is taking place in Australia after residents from a remote outback town complained the animals were destroying their community. The media had been barred from filming the cull but early reports suggested hundreds had been killed only a few hours into the slaughter. Nick Bryant reports from Sydney. Camels culled […]
For the week ending 2 December there was welcome rain across the lower half of the Murray-Darling Basin (see Map 1). The highest rainfall was recorded in the Snowy Mountains at Charlotte Pass with 80 mm and in the Victorian Alps with Mt Buffalo receiving 72mm. Notably, many regions such as the Riverina, the western […]
Murray Bridge (AAP) —A mass exodus of dairy farmers is threatening small communities around the lower reaches of the River Murray in South Australia. In the past few years more than 80 per cent of the industry in Murray Bridge has collapsed, taking with it farm employment, property values and even entire families whose spending […]
Phil Mercer, Foreign Correspondent, Last Updated: December 06. 2009 7:47PM UAE / December 6. 2009 3:47PM GMT SYDNEY // Water thieves in Australia are to be targeted by tougher penalties as the authorities promise to protect declining supplies amid a long-standing drought and the threat of climate change. Officials have said vast that amounts of […]
By Rebecca Lindsey A spring heat wave scorched southeastern Australia in mid-November 2009, pushing the fire danger to the “catastrophic” category in parts of South Australia and New South Wales and to “extreme” in other surrounding areas. Many cities, including Melbourne and Adelaide experienced record-breaking temperatures that continued for many days. This pair of images […]
By Staff WritersSydney (AFP) Dec 3, 2009 The rotting carcasses of thousands of wild camelswho have died of thirst in Australia’s desert Outback are polluting vital waterholes and sacred sites, a report said Thursday. The Central Land Council, which administers Aboriginal land in the nation’s arid centre, said the corpses were poisoning water supplies, describing […]
SOUTHERN Australia stands to have the worst drought conditions since the 1930s as maximum summer temperatures soar, Victoria’s rural fire authority says. In a weather presentation to federal Victorian MPs at Parliament House in Canberra, Country Fire Authority chief fire officer Russell Rees also said there was a 55 per cent chance of summer temperatures […]
Drenching spring rain has failed to to ease crisis, with dams at their second lowest level ever going into summer. For the first time in 12 years Melbourne has received above average rainfall in spring but dams are still only 38 per cent full. The only time they have been lower was last year when […]
By COSIMA MARRINERDecember 3, 2009 JENNIFER TUNLEY got a shock when news broke that her Darling Downs town of Dalby had just eight hours’ supply of water left. “We hadn’t heard how drastic our water situation was until now,” Mrs Tunley said. “There was a bit of panic.” Dalby council’s dire warning that Queensland’s rich […]
