Sundry snaps around Mallacoota

 This is more or less gathering together some photos I have taken over the last couple of weeks.

On going to the poo pits for my regular survey I was surprised to see a rather pale wader flying around above pond 2.  I was eventually able to get a reasonable image which has been identified as a Marsh Sandpiper: the first record in the District and I think the 7th in the Shire.

Roadworks are in progress along Lakeside Drive after the floodwaters dropped.  My guess is the level of the Lake was about 2m above 'normal': this was the highest I remember seeing it, but some old-timers commented about it once reaching the steps on the Bakery.

The boardwalk was fixed up very quickly considering how badly it appeared to have been damaged, and the gate was removed shortly thereafter.

A Koala was not at all fussed.

I went to Shipwreck Creek some days later to see the state of play there.  I have no idea how deep the crossing was but decided that  it was not worth experimenting.

We went to the Eastern Heath instead and found a few interesting items.  A Jacky Dragon posed obligingly for a photograph.

A Large Tongue Orchid (Cryptostylis subulata) beside the path through the heath.

Back at home, there is a fair bit of flowering going on.  Our Magnolia in particular is putting on a lot of flowers.

The bronze Leptospermum is just getting started.

A daisy of some sort.

A cypress: interesting pattern of leaves,

The gulls have nested here before.  If the weather is at all warm the eggs (or chicks) cook!

A sad jetty.  I suspect they didn't use the correct screws to fasten the bearers.

On going dampness

 This is initially a set of photos from around the District showing the flooding.  They begin on 1 December at the bottom of Angophora Drive.

The Goodwin Sands used to be there somewhere!

Now to second of December.

The next three from Genoa.

This chart is at 0700 on 3 December.

November 2023 Weather Report

 In terms of temperature the month averaged to being warm, but this was largely due to high daily minima (usually overnight temperatures holding up).  The outstanding feature of the month was the dramatic rainfall caused by an East Coast Low in the last two days of the month, making it the second wettest November on record.

Rainfall

In essence a month of two halves.  From the 1st to the 19th my Weather Station (WS) recorded rainfall on 2 days, totalling a miserable 2.2 mm.  From the 20th onwards the WS recorded rain on 10 of the 11 days, falls above 5mm on 5 days.

As expected this total is way above last year and the median fall for November.

A time series for Novembers shows the result to be outstanding (but not unprecedented)!  The values for 1981 and 1982 come from Gabo as BoM has no data for those months.  (The highest rainfall for any month shown by BoM for the Airport site is 440mm in April 1989.)

Apart from the sheer amount of rain in the last 2 days of the month the contrast between the steady, modest-rate falls until 1400hrs on the 30th and the series of squalls which followed was dramatic.  

In terms of outcome, the closure of the Genoa Rd by a landslide has had the greatest impact.  There has been a fair amount of flooding around the area due to the rising level of the Lake.  This seems to have been a 'perfect storm' combination of heavy rain, high tides and an onshore wind.  A couple of photos:

Lakeside Drive at 0800 hrs on 1 December.

Where have the Goodwin Sands gone?

Temperatures

My usual measure of the overall temperature is the difference between the average temperature for a current period and the long term mean of that measure: this is the anomaly.  For November looking at the average temperature the overall value is +0.95C.  After a very cool start to the month followed by a warm spell (see below) the anomaly mainly resolved to close to +1C.

Most of the extreme temperatures were moderate: they are discussed in the following sections.

Minimum temperatures

The average minimum temperature for the month was 13.77C well above the long term mean of 12.27C, as shown in the following chart.

An overall time series of minimum temperatures is not of great assistance as it varies greatly from year to year.  Instead I have compiled a set of annual series for readers to contemplate.

I have also examined the daily values for significant variation from the long term mean.  In November there were 9 days in which the minimum was more than 1 standard deviation above the long term mean (but no occurrences of minima more than 1 SD below the mean).  Indeed there were only 6 daily minima below the average for that day.

Maximum Temperatures

The average minimum temperature for the month was 22.53C slightly above the long term mean of 22.12C, as shown in the following chart.

The set of recent average monthly maxima are interesting in that they show the maxima for the colder months to be above average, but for the last two months have moderated, probably due to cloud cover.

6 daily maxima were >1SD above the long term monthly mean and one day (11th, maximum 34.3C) was >2SD above.  only one of the significantly high maxima coincided with a significantly high minimum, meeting my definition of a Hot Day.  Due to lack of consecutive Hot Days there was not a Heat Wave but I considered 7th - 11th and 21st to 26th as Warm Spells with maxima and minima above the average and several values for one of the indicators significantly so.

Humidity

Overall a somewhat sticky month, with both 0900hrs and 1500hrs relative humidities well above the average for those standard times.  From the 22nd onwards relative humidity was always above 70% for both those times.

Wind

Normally November is one of the windiest months but the last month was, overall, relatively still as far as my WS measured it.  My WS has poor exposure to wind, especially from the South and East, and  unfortunately the BoM publishes (at no charge) very little information about wind.  Comparing the maximum daily Gusts from the two sources shows they correlate "fairly well"  (correlation coefficient of 0.52).  

There were a couple of windy days early-mid month, and again in the East Coast Low period, as shown in this chart of daily runs from my WS.

Late November 2023 weather event

 I was astonished to see the BoM weather forecast for Mallacoota show rainfall for 29 November listed as 50mm to 110 mm followed by 30mm to 90 mm on the 30th.  In retrospect, that seems to have been one of the BoM's better forecasts!  

My weather station ended with 96.4mm of rain on calendar 29/11 and at 0500hrs on 30/11 has already recorded 28.4mm.  The BoM at the airport have recorded 89.2mm for 29/11 and 24.2 for 30/11.  Somewhat surprisingly they only recorded 46.8mm on Gabo for 29/11 but are now more in step with 33.6 to 0500 on the 30th.

Putting matters in a longer perspective by 0700 on the 30th we are up to 210mm for the month.  That is our 3rd highest November (I hope we don't get to be #2, but it only needs another 50mm) and 23rd out of all 587 months for which I have data.  (While typing that, another mm came down, elevating this month to #20 all time.)

The first set of images show the 512 km composite radar plot centred on Bairnsdale.

29 November 1250hrs

29 November 1523 hrs - note the storms from Bateman's Bay North.

30 November 0500hrs,

30 November 1349hrs: it seemed that the rain had calmed down, but in the last hour he have had a series of squalls, delivering over 30mm and totally overwhelming the gutters.

I will put up a table comparing various sites when the even is over (or at least has calmed down).    At present the most interesting aspect is comparing the rainfall between 0900 and 1500 on 30 November.

BoM Airport             23.8mm

BoM Gabo Island     36.4mm

Angophora Drive     43.2mm

Clarke St                  40.0mm

Most of the fall at Angophora has come in the 2 hours between noon and 1400hrs and featured some fierce squalls with maximum rain rates of 139 and 109 mm/hr.  That explains the variation between the sites.  Also of interest is that on the 29th Gabo had much less rain than the airport: today it has reversed!

I went for a drive (to Bucklands) as Lakeside Drive was closed and took a few snaps.  This is the gully opposite our house.  I have never seen this much water here.

Bucklands Boat hire needs a boat to get to the boats!

The Narrows are a bit wider

A gully between Karbeethong and Sunny Corner.  Again never seen water like this.

These folk at Karbeethong Jetty seemed to be having a toughish time getting all their kit off the houseboats and into their cars.  I think they would also have some memories of the trip back to the Jetty.