For over a year the NSW south coast has slowly cracked and dried.
A little over a week ago a neighbour and his friends tried to save native fish as they struggled to survive in a coastal lagoon that had gone so rank everything living in it was starting to die. A few days later it began to rain and the lagoon smashed open to the sea. And then, for a few days, it was dry again. Last Friday it once more started to rain, soft and gentle at first. But today a low pressure system formed on top of us. I watched kangaroos, which a week ago were searching for fodder, being swept away in floodwaters into a coastal lake.
Farm dams filled so fast that spillways couldn’t cope and the water simply breached dam walls. Our entire front paddock was under a foot of water. My fish-rescuing friend rang to tell me that he saw something moving upwards in the floodwaters. They were eels, life again on the move.
Up here in the highlands, most dams are full or near too it. ~250 mm rain for February to date, with some very heavy and persistent downpours causing local flooding. A very intuitive local grazier spent a lot of money building new dams in December and January – all are now full, with water to last many months. The causeway on the backroad into town has maintained a flow over the road such that crossing it is now a bit of a Leyland Brothers experience. There have been a few mass-breeding events for the frogs, with some seen hopping between dams and streams across formerly dry paddocks. Birdlife has rebounded with some multiple breeding events capitalising on high availability of food. Some plants appear likely to flower twice in the season, though many of the exotic deciduous species appear confused by the mild weather and low light levels – some are already colouring-up as though it is autumn, yet we haven’t had cold nights – just the opposite, with overnight temps not below the high teens, which is odd for 700m ASL.
The accursed lawn is loving it – so much rain and reasonable warmth, and it is too wet to mow it effectively. Wouldn’t have a lawn, but the place is rented so we’re stuck with it…
The weed-spraying contractors will do well!
En route to Nowra recently, I noticed that the now saturated soil is unable to support some of the larger trees when the wind picks up. Hopefully we won’t get strong winds or they’ll be many trees brought down – roots and all.
A beautiful east coast low. Durras creek is open, Durras Lake is looking much better. No more sun baked seagrass beds. Swam in the lake yesterday and you could taste/feel/see the difference between the cool fresh water on the surface and the warm hyper-saline water on the bottom.
You can see the water rising in this graph from Manly Hydraulics Laboratory.
http://www.mhl.nsw.gov.au/htbin/map_data_display.com?SITE=DURR
A great website if you want to see how the coastal lakes and rivers are doing.
http://www.mhl.nsw.gov.au/www/sc.htmlx
G’day,
Does this mean the water tank you were told you would “never, ever” fill is now full? Or was, at least briefly?