Maleny Weather

 In 1911, Bill Walker at the age of 17 joined the Ambulance Service at the Anne Street Centre, Brisbane and recalled his first job was to push patients on a two-wheel litter from Northgate to the Brisbane Hospital. Fourteen years later he became Superintendent of the Landsborough Ambulance Centre, covering the area of Mount Mellum, Maleny, Caloundra, Beerwah, Peachester, Kilkoy, Woodford and Mooloolah. In 1925, a butcher’s shop was moved from Glasshouse to Landsborough to serve as an ambulance garage and workshop. The casualty room was down in the corner of the yard between the Memorial Hall and the old Council Chambers. There was no telephone and communication was by the railway station telegraph. The Beerburrum Hospital – the hospital on the hill – built for ex-servicemen wounded in World War 1 – would wait to receive patients to arrive by Bill’s Dodge Four ambulance or by train. Most common accidents in those days were broken limbs, tree felling accidents, axe cuts ~ and there were several confinements in the ambulance. Bill also attended the Traveston train derailment disaster. This was on the 9th June 1925 when, at 2.00am in the morning the mail train from Brisbane became derailed 2½ Miles north of Traveston. One of the passenger carriages and a luggage van bound for Rockhampton toppled over the bridge known as 96-mile Creek between Traveston and Tandur railway stations. The carriage was literally smashed to matchwood on the rocky creek bed below. Another passenger carriage fell over on its side on the northern bank also adding to the mortality rate; which consisted of nine killed outright. Fifty-five were injured, many seriously. The disaster was caused by one of the wheels of the bogies of the luggage van jumped the rails on a curve about half a mile from Traveston. In this condition the wagon travelled two miles, and over two bridges, before the final crash came. Bill records vividly the scene that met his eyes on that tragic day.

Throughout the week the Ranges were under the stable influence of a ridge of high pressure extending from a high in the Tasman Sea.  Daytime temperatures were well above average due to the northerly winds.  The heat stress factor peaked at 34ºC on Saturday and Sunday, culminating with a thunder and lightning display at 7.35 pm but there was only a splatter of rain measuring 0.2mm.  On Sunday evening the weather satellite was showing development of a significant upper level system heading our way, and with surface troughs is likely to bring thunderstorms and a band of rain to help fill near empty storage tanks.

Please go to “Current Weather” &“This Month” pages for more data

HMS IMPLACABLE (ex Duguay-Trouin)

By Patrick Stacey

 Not many people know that a wooden walled battleship that fought in the Battle of Trafalgar was still afloat in 1949, some 144 years after the event.

 No!   Not Admiral Lord Nelson’s flag ship H.M.S. Victory, as she was already in dry dock and restored to her former glory.

 The ship I am referring to (and had a personal interest in) is a French 74-gun ‘man of war’ Duguay-Trouin. Built in Roquefort, France in 1801 she had a waterline length of 55m and breadth of 15m. Complement of 670 men

Under the command of Claude Touffet she survived the Battle of Trafalgar after causing severe damage to the British fleet. The French ship survived the Battle but 14 days later was sighted by Sir Richard’s Strachan fleet. In the ensuing engagement Claude Touffet and all his officers were killed.

 A prize crew was put on board the French ship and sailed back to England for a refit and then commissioned as H.M.S. Implacable. She saw service with the Mediterranean fleet until 1855 when she became a Royal Naval training ship.

 In the 1930” the Royal Navy gave permission for HMS Implacable to be used as a private training ship in Portsmouth Harbour for Merchant Service cadets

 After the war the old ‘man of war’ became too costly to maintain and on December 2^nd 1949 a tug took her in tow and she was scuttled off the Isle of Wight in the English Channel. The last ship afloat from the time of Trafalgar had been put to rest after 148 years.

Please go to “Current Weather” &“This Month” pages for more data

In the first part of the week the Range weather was determined by a surface trough moving through the region interacting with a ridge of high pressure up the east coast. This brought in some atmospheric instability with strong winds whipping up widespread dust on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  Thunder was heard on Monday evening with just a splatter of rain. On Tuesday there were two thunderstorms, one at 0.30am and the other 4.00pm, resulting in 10mm of rainfall. This was on a day when water restrictions were introduced at Maleny and supply contractors were required to fill their tankers at Landsborough instead of Maleny Showground.  During the latter half of the week, a high in the Great Australian Bight built a strong ridge over the Queensland coast bringing increased cloud cover to the Ranges with a promise of some isolated maritime showers. In fact, the showers were very few and far between and some areas lucky if the were blessed with just one or two millimetres.

 Yesterday’s thunderstorm is a timely reminder we are now coming into the season of thunderstorms. Here in Maleny we average 30 thunderstorms a year of which ten are usually with hail.

First indication we get of a thunderstorm approaching is a change in sky to stratus and cumulonimbus. The sound of distant claps of thunder is heard. Should fork lightning be observed then its distance away can be calculated by counting in seconds from the instant a lightning is seen to when the thunder is heard.  Divide by three and the answer is in Kilometres.

 The thunderstorm activity is the result of unstable weather when hot moist low level air is trapped by a temperature inversion from the cold dry air above. In such a scenario the low level air becomes agitated and driven by hot winds desperately tries to break through the barrier and when it does a towering storm Cumulonimbus cloud develops, rising to great heights.

 Hail is a spectacular by-product of thunderstorms. It begins life as a frozen droplet of water that is carried aloft in the updraft area of a thunderstorm. Sometimes as it falls back to earth it will be trapped in the updraft a second time before falling again. This can happen several times resulting in another layer of ice being deposited on the growing hailstone. A hailstone cut in two reveals a ring-like structure like an onion. As many as 25 rings have been counted. Sometimes dust, pollen and small insects can be seen when the hail has melted.

 Two well recorded episodes of orange-sized hail in Sydney were on 1^st January 1947 and 14 April 1990 when there was tremendous damage to vehicles and houses. Permanent evidence of the size of hailstones was made by a Sydney dentist who made a dental impression of two hailstones and used these moulds to produce replicas of them.  They were similar in size to a tennis ball.

 The earliest mention of hail that I could find is in the Bible Old Testament’s Book of Joshua describing the discomfort of Canaanites armies during a hailstorm, and I quote:-

“… the Lord cast down large hailstones from the sky on the Canaanites, and more of them died from the hailstones than were killed by the swords of the Israelites…”

 Heard this one?

Patient: Doctor, can I have a second opinion?

Doctor: Come back tomorrow!

Please go to “Current Weather” &“This Month” pages for more data

The first part of the week’s weather on the Range was influenced by a large slow moving high in the Tasman Sea bringing south-westerly winds and temperatures in the mid-twenties. On Wednesday a surface trough moved in over the Ranges. This brought atmospheric instability and a thunderstorm at 2.30 pm.  The 8mm of rainfall was heavy, and at one time measured a fall-rate of 182 mm per hour.  During the thunderstorm there were wind gusts of 20 knot winds.  On Sunday a new high moved in to the southern Tasman Sea bringing south-easterly winds and some maritime showers over the coast and into the hinterland.

8.10.09 Japan braces for Typhoon Melor. A strong typhoon with wind gusts of more than 210 kilometres per hour is forecast to hit the main Japanese island of Honshu this morning. Typhoon Melor has caused the cancellation of more than 200 flights in western Japan and knocked out power to more than 10,000 homes in the southern islands.

6.10.09. India has Worse Floods in History. While the world’s attention is focused on the disaster zones of Samoa and Sumatra, India has been gripped by the worst floods on record. The Indian authorities are continuing relief efforts in the country’s south where about 250 people have died as a result of the flooding.  Some areas have been hit by the highest water levels in more than 100 years.

8.10.09 Work to begin on weather radar. Work will start next month on a multi-million dollar weather radar near Tamworth. The Weather Bureau says it will fill a gap in its network for forecasting severe weather between Moree and Wagga Wagga. The New South Wales regional director, Barry Hanstrum, says the radar will help track thunderstorms within a 250 kilometre radius6.10.09.

 Sydney Hospital damaged By Hail. A hailstorm has caused several ceilings to collapse at a private hospital in Sydney’s north. The Mount Wilga Private Hospital says it has moved a number of patients after water started leaking into the hospital.  Emergency crews have set up a temporary power supply for the affected part of the hospital