Day 1 of a new year, and already SEQ is on flood watch. Hundreds of mm of rain fell in a few hours overnight in parts of the Gold Coast causing several river and creeks to rise rapidly into flood.
Several swift-water rescues, sandbag stations being opened and Emergency Alerts going out telling people to not go out on the roads.
Tony Auden from 7 News in his analysis says “forecast models didn’t pick this up”.
Just looks like a very heavy, slow moving system is sitting over the Gold Coast. Just what they didn’t need
That’s the issue with our new climate, once you get in a weather rut it’s hard to break out of it. The driving factor is an increased propensity for atmospheric blocking, which is in turn linked to slowing jetstreams, in turn linked to the warming poles.
Just to add the mix, Gold Coast City Council says they are having technical issues and delays with their SMS and Email alerts system. Not ideal during an event like this.
7.6-magnitude earthquake hits western #Japan . Reports of damage coming in
Tsunami too, this time on the western side of the country.
Some of footage coming out is pretty mind blowing. One video had a family in a multi level carpark, walls literally swaying. Another in an apartment, while building back and forth, I was awaiting its collapse.
Wonder how long until a tsunami is expected? 5m will do huge damage.
I’ve read that the building code there requires buildings are constructed/retrofitted to withstand very strong quakes/tremors.
We had 104mm just south of Yeppoon on the morning of the 1st . Just got lucky under a storm. Water was laying on grass in parks now gone.
I think it can be both, but “electric” is more of a visual term (“that storm last night was quite electric”) whereas “electrical” is probably more technical?
Most people would say Thunder Storm or Electrical Storm. I think the writer must have gone to the Electric Storm Festival. 
Network power restored to all 130k+ customers affected by Christmas storms across Gold Coast, Logan & Scenic Rim. In 14 days, up to 1000 staff rebuilt 120km of powerline & replaced 150 poles & 500 crossarms – our biggest SEQ storm response. 🙏to the community for amazing support pic.twitter.com/WqyYyGS4iK
— Energex (@Energex) January 7, 2024
Why hello Monsoon! FNQ going to get belted again for the rest of this month it seems. Will make those road repairs a bit harder sadly
I’d be holding any Cairns trips folks until Feb onwards.
Too hot and humid there at this time of year for me anyway, monsoon, cyclone or not.
From Twitter/X:
Sydney has today registered its highest dew point on record, based on hourly observations, after reaching 25.9ºC at 11am. Sub-hourly dew points have gone as high as 26.7ºC so far, although these can’t be compared to historical data. Phenomenal obs for Sydney.
– Ben Domensino (@Ben_Domensino), January 11, 2024
It has been very humid the last few days.
Though slightly preferable to 40 degree heat and at least we haven’t had storms in the Sydney - Newcastle area for a few days now.
And the afternoons have been sunny with a nice breeze, though still humid, but better than in the morning.
