Maleny Weather

Recent heavy rain in the catchment areas has filled dams to 50 per cent capacity. The highest levels for four years.

The results of a cloud-seeding trial to break drought in south-east Queensland will be known by next month. Scientists are analysing the results of two seasons of cloud-seeding, which first started in December 2007. It involved 64 research flights to seed small storm clouds, in an effort to increase the amount of rain they produce. The $7.6m trial was run by the Climate Change Centre of Excellence, part of  the State Government’s Environmental Protection Agency. An EPA spokeswoman said about 130 clouds were seeded over Somerset and Wivenhoe dams catchment areas, two of Brisbane’s major water supplies.

An ice shelf the size of Jamaica is close to wrenching itself away from Antarctica in a disturbing effect of climate change, according to scientists. The European Space Agency said a century-old ice ‘bridge’ linking the massive ice-shelf to the continent appears to be on the verge of collapse. The ice umbilical cord tying the Wilkins Ice Shelf to two islands on the Antarctic Peninsular looks set to collapse, the ESA report said

Hot nights across south-east Queensland have been quietly setting records as the heavy rainfall takes all the news

Maleny Weather

// Evaporation tank overflows

The weather and its consequences has captured media headlines and been the major topic of conversation all week. Three different weather systems came together to give the south-east of the state an abnormal drenching. With an upper level trough overhead, an onshore moist airflow from the Coral Sea and a surface trough extending from a cold frontal system over NSW combined to bring greater instability in the atmosphere.

Worse hit areas were the low-lying areas around Coolum and Kin Kin, northwest of Noosa, where flash flooding caused devastation on the roads and surged through the township flooding properties.

A 78-year-old Kin Kin woman’s submerged car was found 500 metres downstream from Six mile Creek Crossing, near Kin Kin, where she had tried to drive through the crossing that had been washed away by a  metre deep floodwater. Her body was recovered the following day. The woman had been returning home after visiting her sick husband in hospital.

The highest official week’s rainfall was 504 mm at Pomona, and Maleny was in 9^th position with 254 mm.