Historic weather photos and data

I spent a little time out at the Bunker museum yesterday (28 July) with a particular focus on trying to find the dates of the 1971 floods.  These got a few mentions in the field trip to Gipsy Point Cemetery and the Genoa School Museum on 27 July.  As will be revealed below I think I have got those dates sorted, but a whole bunch of other interesting things have emerged in trying to link the photos of flooded (etc) roads I snipped with my phone.  (In some cases my images omitted the crucial dates and I have had much fun sleuthing out when the articles were written!)

While I haven't (yet) been able to get all the information I might want to comment on each image it is really quite astonishing how much weather information is around from BoM.  I primarily used rainfall data from Gabo Island and Timbillica as they have quite long series.  In a couple of cases I also checked data for Comparison sites at Sale and Orbost (which have closed, but have much longer series than the current sites).

Two takeaways from this exercise have been:

• the importance of orographic rainfall in setting up big falls (see comparisons of Timbilla and Gabo Island below); and
• The significant lags between inland rain and flooding in the Inlet or even the lower parts of the rivers draining the higher country.

The first photo is from 1928.  I have been able to get rainfall data for Gabo Island and Sale which show those stations recorded 121 mm and 176 mm respectively, going back about 2 weeks to 14 March.  In these days blessed with bitumen roads and much wider tyres I suspect that amount of rain would cause no problems.

 Plus ca change ....  From 1941.

 A handwritten note, matches very nicely with BoM records for Gabo Island  showing 226 mm over 8 and 9 February.  The 0900 cut off split the deluge!

 I found a photo of some floods in 1952 but my snap just shows the year and some water so not very interesting.  When I consulted the records for Timbillica I found a few periods of heavy rain in that year but looking at 7 day totals the highest total was 286 mm for the 13th to 19th of June.  (Gabo Island scored 202 mm over that period, showing the orographic effect of the ranges.)

Orography was evident again in 1953,  In the period leading up to this headline (5-8th May) 233 mm fell at Timbillica, 135 mm at Gabo and 108 mm at Sale.

 Here are some images of the 1971 floods.  I have a memory of that well known source "someone" saying that in town the water got to the steps of the Bakery!  Looking at the rainfall data it seems that the heaviest falls in 1971 were from January 23 (104mm at Timbillica) to 8 February (27.2mm at Timbillica).  The totals for the whole period were 470 mm (!!!) at Timbillica and 236mm at Gabo.

I am reasonably sure thext photo refers to the period to 7 November 1973 as the rainfall records (in mm) for Orbost over November 1 to 7 in that year convert to the number of points cited in this article.  Timbillica scored 126.5 mm on the 5th of November (try lighting a Guy Fawkes bonfire in that!)

I have no idea why this was said then, as I can't track down any heavy rain near the cited date.  Possibly someone smelt some spare flood relief funds blowing in the wind?

The next two images are interesting as the first matches a period of heavy rain 326mm at Timbillica from 2 -4 June 1978 ....

 .. while this one from 11 June (determined by reference to the Queens Birthday long weekend) is well after the heavy rain finished.  Perhaps the soggy country was still draining out and the storms off shore blocked the water from flowing out?  I can't find any information to support that.

This is a huge washout on the Genoa-Mallacoota Rd in December 1985.

 There hadn't been any major rain in the previous few days but again a few days earlier there had been a very heavy fall,   From 26 -29 /11/85 Timbillica had 231 mm of rain and 153  mm fell at Gabo.  Did anyone say "Orographic"?

Snow at Mallacoota!  Records of temperatures are a bit thin on the ground around that time but the Orbost Comparison site had a maximum of 8.1^oC and a minimum of 1.9 ^oC.

Responding to a post about the snow event I made on a weather forum another member of that forum commented:

"It's very possible that snow would have fallen that day in Mallacoota, but unlikely it settled. In TAS, it was the coldest and snowiest day since 1921 and has not been bettered since. Snow fell to sea level in the south and east with the Hobart City BoM observer reporting 8cm snow on ground.

The city was isolated until midday. Some interesting links:
ABC News coverage that night for TASChannel 7 news of VIC and TASA gallery of pics in and around Hobart from the Mercury

There are several lengthy and authoritative mentions of the 1986 snowfall in this paper, Climatology of cold outbreaks with snow over Tasmania. Search for "1986".