Wild Weather

The last 10 days or so have seen some wild weather in and around Armidale, rounding off what has been a fairly wet year so far. This time last year, we were in a serious drought and had major water use restrictions. This time we have streams running strongly, dams full, and - as I reported a week or so ago - parts of out town were hit by a tornado that seriously damaged some buildings at the University of New England and in town.

This post reflects on some of these events.

While out for an evening walk a week or so ago I headed for the Armidale Apex Lookout. Facing east I saw this large jet-black thunderstorm depositing yet more rain on our landscape. A few days later I went for an afternoon drive and looked at Malpas Dam, which stores Armidale's domestic water supply. As you can see, the dam is now full instead of the c. 30% capacity last year. Indeed, because of recent rain, water was being released for downstream flow.

And here's another view over the landscape c. 30 km north of Armidale. Normally, at the weekend, the dam would be full of yachts and other boating craft, but some reason I can only guess at the surface was devoid of any craft on this occasion.

Yesterday, a little over a week after our tornado, I went out to see if my office on campus at UNE was undamaged - much of the university now being opened up for business. Well, my office and building housing it looked fine. But imagine my consternation when I observed that several old adjacent mostly old timber buildings had either been destroyed or badly damaged. I sometimes walk past them, but was glad I wasn't around on the day the tornado hit us!

 

I wonder how UNE is going to recover from the damage shown here.

AS

Armidale Tornado

 This is my first post in perhaps 6 weeks. Forgive me for no posting BLOGS in which Dot and I are bored stiff by lockdowns and inability to go to interesting places.

However, yesterday we saw the outcome of an astonishing event ... the first tornado in Armidale during the 50 years I've lived here. On Thursday evening (14th October) we experienced a massive storm with thunder and lightening and powerful winds at about 10 pm ... just before we went to bed. Our electricity was cut off instantly and we raced to unearth our solar-powered torches which we keep charged for such events. And so to bed. 

Well, I rose at about 6.30 am as usual and noticed immediately something strange. There was still no electricity, without which we had no radio or television or internet. However, attention to my mobile phone yielded news that Armidale had, during that storm experienced a tornado. After a quick brekky I jumped in my car and headed for my University of New England office where I knew I'd get internet connectivity. That didn't work because UNE was shut down and people were not allowed to enter buildings on campus. But one thing I noticed was some destruction of timber buildings on campus - as shown below, so it looked like the tornado had gone through there. 

I searched for more evidence of damage in town, but couldn't find any. Then a good friend phoned me saying that north Armidale - where we live - also experienced damage from the tornado. Before, heading there, however, I went down town to see if all of Armidale was without electricity. However, the shopping centre was alive and well. Going home in dismay - why just us with no electricity ? - I noticed the traffic lights near us were out. I parked our car at home and went for a walk to see if any damage occurred. Well, the first thing I noticed was a nearby street shut down for a good reason. the roadway was adorned with broken power-lines - see below - which explains our lack of juice!

Walking a little further I saw some real damage - especially trees and branches scattered across gardens and roadways, coupled with occasional oddities like strips of metal hanging from poles.

After a while, I gave up searching for damage and I thought it mostly minor as most houses still had undamaged roofs unlike the wreckage we often see in Texas and states up the Mississippi valley. Eventually I found I could use my laptop free of charge at our council's HQ and investigated my usual c. 60 emails I use each day. That done, I headed home to discover that 14 hours after the tornado we had power back and life could return to normal .... well, sort of. It was only during the evening news broadcasts that I heard of much greater damage to property than I'd been able to find.  

So, early this morning I went for a walk around our district to see if I could find evidence of major damage. And I sure did! Turning down Watson avenue (no, we don't have a Sherlock avenue) I began to see roof damage - the next 3 pictures. If, you like go to Google maps and key in the names of the roads I mention.

Then I turned south into Worrell Place and the damage began to look more severe - see the next 3 pictures. This, by the way, is one of the routes I take in my regular afternoon walks.

I kept walking to a green corridor I also often traverse. This was an attempt to get a different perspective on the tornado's trajectory. Well, the next two pictures show a lot of tree and vegetation damage.

Turning off the corridor into Joan Plaza ... please don't ask me who Joan was ... I was stunned to see much more profound damage to property, as shown in the next 3 pictures. The street was crowded with council staff and local residents trying to clean up their neighborhood's mess and move treasured belongings out of their homes.

At the point where Watson Avenue joins Joan Plaza lies the house where a long-term university colleague of mine - Jim Walmsley - lives. I rang his doorbell to see how he survived the event, but there was no-one at home. Fortunately for him, the property damage was confined to the south side of Watson Avenue. Luckily, all Jim had to deal with was a few cut tree branches. I then walked back to Chestnut Avenue to see if any properties there received major damage - see the next 3 pictures. Well, there was a little roof damage to some house, but the main problem seemed to be fallen trees and heaps of guys with chainsaws were cutting branches and even trunks to put into a shredding machine that sent small pieces of timber into the truck shown in the next two pictures.

And here's my final picture of roof damage. This is a recently constructed large home and I feel sorry for the residents.

 Alas, tornado's are not known for their special selectivity. Well, let's hope that tornados are not associated with global warming and that we are likely not to have another one in the next 50 years, which I might survive given rapidly increasing longevity. 

AS

Early morning walk along Tilbuster Creek

 I and a good friend often go for early walks on Saturday mornings, with our principal destination being Tilbuster Creek lying about 4 to 5 km north of Armidale. We like it because there's a wealth of great scenery and wildlife and the tracks are interesting. It's also very lonely when we typically travel at c. 7 am.

Yesterday, we had to take a different route to usual because recent heavy rains had made many paths a bit boggy. Strangely, we sought the quickest route to the creek-lands because the tracks alongside were not water-logged. It was a lovely day - not a single cloud in the brilliantly blue sky and the temperature rose fast. So here I am in summer gear standing on the creek bank!

Something strange happened at this spot. For some reason, my glasses climbed our of my track-suit pocket and jumped on to the grass. I still have no explanation for their activity, but they were not noticed as missing until maybe 15 minutes later. At that point we retraced our steps to where the photos were taken and there they were innocently looking up at us!

Oh well! Out other excitement was looking at the river scenery and trying to spot one of the Platypus species known to inhabit the waters. Alas, they must still have been in bed. However, there was a lot of bird-life and the Kookaburra shown here attracted our attention. It also seemed rather interested in our presence.

And here are a couple of pictures of the creek. Please let me know  if you can spot  a Platypus!

AS

Armidale's early Spring washed away

Technically we're still in Winter, but towards the end of last week we had a taste of early Summer with some daily maximum temperatures exceeding 20 C, As usual, all good things come to a screeching halt and the last 3 days had a climatic wreck. Maximum temperatures plunged to + 6 C (43 F) and this was accompanied with gale force winds and heavy rain which yielded nearly 50 mm (c. 2 inches). Previous heavy rain over recent months had filled all the water storage dams around Armidale, so the heavy rain simply swept down Dumaresq Creek and generated even larger floods than I reported a few months ago. The river also seemed to be flowing faster. Have a look at these pictures:

AS

Early Spring?

 We've had some lovely weather in the last few days and the flowers in our garden adore it. Yesterday we reached 18 C beneath a brilliant blue sky, not bad for late winter at 1000 m above sea level. After all the recent rain, our shrubs, bulbs and other plants are having a lovely time bursting into flower.

Above we have a lovely string of daffodils along our driveway, most opened in the last week.

On the timber decking outside the back door we has this glorious collection of flowering pot-plants (above) and to the back side (right).

These exhibits are only a small fraction of the mass of flowers surrounding us right now. I go for frequent walks around town and the images are similar in most places. We're really looking forward for the formal start of Spring just two weeks from now!

Of course, in the middle of a virus lockdown, working in the garden is becoming an increasingly attractive prospect!

AS

Lockdown Scamble

 Last Saturday, 7th August, State Government announced that Armidale would be entered into lockdown as two people had been identified as having the deadly Delta virus. They had been in Newcastle where the Delta version was already going strongly and was in lockdown. Illegally, they escaped Newcastle and delivered the virus to our area. Worse still, another relative of theirs, who goes to the Armidale Secondary College, has now been tested positive and we fear that kids there may catch the virus en masse.

Given this situation we must now stay at home for a week, with several legal opportunities to escape. For example, we can shop for food and other necessities like pharmaceuticals or hardware. We can also exercise and, in the last two days, I have done 28,000 steps according my Fitbit with my weekly target being 70,000. I guess I'll easily meet that target! However, if we escape legally from home we still have to wear masks and social distance. Still, I approve this lockdown as Delta is much more infectious than the first strain of COVID-19.

The lockdown was announced via various media early on Saturday morning with the start-up time being 5 pm. And we, like seemingly half of Armidale's residents, headed straight to one of the local supermarkets (Woolworths) to top up our food shelves. Mind you, I also had to quickly cancel the afternoon's bridge tournament I was due to direct. Players were both scared of the virus, many being elderly, and there was fear that the game might extend beyond 5 pm. Having reached the relevant shopping mall we were stunned by (a) the shortage of parking space and (b) the swarm of customers heading to the entrance. Our worst fears soon emerged as there was a queue to enter the supermarket and a shortage of trollies. However, the queue dramatically lengthened shortly after we arrived there as the first picture below shows. The queue might have been 50 m of more long - the length of the shopping centre's public area. Anyway, after a short wait we were allowed to enter and i managed to seize a trolley.

The remainder of the pictures show the congested aisles with many almost wholly occupied by queues of trollies awaiting check-out. After we'd filled ours with what we needed it took maybe 20 or 25 minutes to go through the checkouts. 

As with the first round of the virus in 2020, we were stunned by the shelves stripped of toilet paper! But it was also noticeable that those arriving early had stripped most of the shelves faster than the staff could fill them with existing reserve stocks. I imagine that by the end of the day many shelves would have been empty. I suppose our two other supermarkets, Coles and Aldi, were similarly looted!

Hopefully our stock will last the week, but I wonder what will happen if lockdown is extended!

AS

Flooded Again

 After a period of drought, Armidale is again experiencing some heavy rain events that have filled  our local reservoirs including the Malpas and Dumaresq dams. Consequently all the incoming rain overflows immediately into local rivers like Dumaresq and Tilbuster Creeks. Earlier this week we had c. 33 mm (1.3 inches) of rain, giving us the highest flood in town I've seen for a long time. The rapidly flowing and high levels of water was, in a way, entertaining and I set out to photograph the event. Here are some of my views and, as you'll note, the skies were laden with dark cloud.

I often walk along this path close to the eastern edge of town, but I couldn't on this day.

Would you like to play football on this pitch?

Again, I'm standing on a footpath I often use. The usual Dumaresq Creek channel is at the rear of the mound of earth at the top left. And its width is usually 3-4 meters, not the huge amount shown here.

Taken from the same spot as the previous image, these next two photos show the view up-stream.

Here we are in the middle of town, but I'd stress that the creeklands are green parks and not occupied by buildings

One can cross the creek in many places via concrete causeways under which the river usually flows. This was not possible on this occasion. In the background lies the Ex-Services Club of which I am a member.

And here, on the footpath across Dumaresq Creek, I saw three migrant kids (Ezidis from northern Iraq who were horribly treated by Islamic State) trusting their luck swinging from steel poles. I suggested they give it up, which they obligingly did, because I feared having to jump in to the raging waters to rescue them.

Here's another flooded crossing with yet another pedestrian bridge I often use to get from one side to the other. On days like this pedestrians can get around more easily than cars.

Finally, this picture in the middle of town shows the river at about 8 to 10 times its usual width. Strangely, the usual inhabitants of this space, ducks, were missing! I presume that they couldn't paddle fast enough to avoid being swept downstream. They're back there now.

Since this event, winter has returned to Armidale with a sequence of cold days where the maximum temperature has hovered around 7 to 10 C and nights have been frosty. However, out many flowering bulbs and shrubs in the garden seem unaffected by those temperatures. At least the sun is now shining.

AS