Maleny Weather

10^th-11^th March. Highway crews worked to carve through snowdrifts that a blizzard piled up 10 feet high as hundreds of stalled motorists waited in bitter cold in North Dakota, USA. The storm was linked to at least four deaths and shut down numerous schools and businesses.

13th March. Air pollution has caused skies above most of the world’s land areas to dim over the past 30 years. The journal Science Scientists found that most of the blame can be traced to to aerosols that are released from the burning of fossil fuels. The dimming has been nearly worldwide

11^th March. Four people have been killed following an avalanche in the French Alps. Six skiers and a guide were swept away while skiing near the resort of Valmeinier.  The avalanche was said to be massive; 900m long and 600m wide

8th March. Strong storms including at least three tornadoes damaged or destroyed homes in parts of the USA Midwest. Rainfall brought fears of more misery to areas hard-hit by flooding last year. The National Weather Service confirmed that damage in Illinois and Indiana on Sunday was the result of tornadoes. In northwest Ohio, high winds tore a roof off of one house, blew the windows out of another and damaged a barn.

The week began with Tropical Cyclone ‘Hamish’ still in the news. It continued its t south-westerly movement parallel to the coast towards Fraser Island before decaying into a rain depression. Spring tides and heavy seas caused considerable erosion of the coastline. An early decision to evacuate people from low lying land and Fraser Island was carried out. The main casualty of the cyclone was a Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship ‘Pacific Adventurer’. Heavy seas resulted in several of her upper deck containers full of ammonia nitrate being lost overboard. The containers pierced the side of the ship as they were washed overboard and released a considerable quantity of light and heavy oil into the sea. A big beach clean-up operation is currently underway.

(This brings to mind the super tanker Torrrey Canyon disaster when she went aground in 1967 on the Seven Sisters reef, off Lands End, England. Over 100,000 tons of crude oil spilt into the sea. Over 100.miles of coastline on both sides of the English Channel was covered by thick oil, with devastating consequences to wildlife).

On Thursday an upper level trough moved into the Ranges and interacted with ex –TC ‘Hamish’. Heavy showers of rain made roads treacherous. Total precipitation for the week was 118 mm. Humidity has been exceptionally high all week and many people complained of tiredness and exhaustion.