Maleny Weather

Oil seems elusive for skimmers and clean up workers along the Gulf of Mexico. It has been just over 10 days since BP successfully capped the well on July 15th, stopping the flow of oil for the first time in 3 months. It has been just days after a fading Tropical Storm Bonnie passed directly over the site of the oil spill. Instead up churning up more oil and pushing it onshore, it is hard to find.
Before the well was capped, 800 skimmers were collecting an average of 85,000 barrels of oil each day. Since then, the take has been 56 barrels.
The latest information from the US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) indicated only seven sizeable patches of surface oil, all light sheen.
Instead of the worse case scenario, is it possible that nature healed itself faster than we ever expected? Decades after the Exxon Valdez, oil can still be found under rocks on the shore, but this is a different situation. The Gulf of Mexico is semi-tropical. Frequent storms, high sun angle, and warm water temperatures between 85F and 90F all contribute to the natural breakdown of oil.

Residents of Papua New Guinea’s sinking Carteret Islands are known as the world’s first climate change refugees but international attention has not translated into relief from their plight.
A relocation process started several years ago but only a handful of islanders have moved to nearby Bougainville.
They are pleading for help to save their relatives from their sinking island homes.
The isolated islands are slowly disappearing under the Pacific Ocean, with rising water inundating crops and spoiling water supplies.

On 26th July 1799 Lt. Matthew Flinders made the first inland exploration of Glass Houses Mountains.
First sited 29 years earlier by Captain Cook who named all the mountains in the group of volcanic cores as Glass Houses as they apparently reminded him of the glass making 100 ft. high kilns or cones of his childhood in Yorkshire.
Matthew Flinders anchored his sloop “Norfolk” in Pumice Stone Channel and by longboat rowed up as far as he could go in a waterway now known as Glass House Creek. He then climbed Mt. Beerburrum to take sightings for his maps.
An attempt the following day to climb Mt. Tibrogargan for triangulation failed.

Beerburrum Pioneers
Walking down Anzac Avenue, Beerburrum and talking to locals I found it hard to imagine this wide quiet residential road, with a splendid avenue of trees down the centre, was once the main street of a bustling country town.
It all started during World War 1 when the Government of the day decided the area would be suitable for small scale farming with its rich sandy soil and subtropical climate.

‘Diggers’ returning from Flanders shell shocked and wounded were rehabilitated in a new hospital constructed on a high knoll overlooking Anzac Avenue.

Over 500 selections of varying acreages had been surveyed and were offered to ex-servicemen by ballot. A pick of a marble decided the location and acreage for the settler.

The government provided basic tools including a spade a wheelbarrow and a long crow bar for clearing the property of scrub. Pineapples were to be the first crop with a promise of a guaranteed market at a canning factory to be built in Brisbane, in time for the first harvest in three years time. However, a change of Government and plans for the canning factory were dropped.

Some settlers found new markets; others were enterprising in growing alternative crops. For instance there is the story of one settler, asked to experiment in the suitability of growing groundnuts on his property was given six sacks of peanuts to sow. Due to a shortage of peanuts the price was high and the settler could not resist the temptation for some quick cash flow. After selling the seed peanuts at market he had to explain to the departmental officers come to inspect his crop that the bandicoots had eaten the lot!

 ‘St Swithin’s day if thou dost rain

‘For forty days it will remain

‘St Swithin’s day if thou be fair

‘For forty days ‘twill rain nae mair

 This is one of the several days from which, in folklore, the weather for a subsequent period is dictated. In popular belief, if it rains on St. Swithin’s Day, it will rain for 40 days, but, if it is fair, 40 days of fair weather will follow. St. Swithin was bishop of Winchester from 852 to 862. At his request he was buried in the churchyard, where rain and the steps of passers-by might fall on his grave. According to legend, after his body was moved inside the cathedral on July 15, 971, a great storm ensued.

Weather frequently changes around midsummer, and thus the tradition that this day influences the weather may stem from ancient pagan belief. On the European continent similar beliefs are attached to other saints (e.g.St, MÉDARD June 8, France).

However, according to the UK met Office, this ‘old wives tale’ is nothing other than a myth. It has been put to the test on 55 occasions, when it has been wet on St Swithin’s Day and 40 days of rain did not follow.

Environmental Health Risk of Shipping

With ocean oil pollution very much in the news there are now reports of confidential data from maritime industry insiders.  Based on engine size and the quality of fuel typically used by ships and cars the report shows that just 15 of the world’s biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as the entire world’s 760m cars. Low grade ship bunker fuel has up to 2,000 times the sulphur content of diesel fuel used in US and European automobiles