A visit to Genoa etc

 I decided to go to Genoa on 22 June to check for Cattle Egrets and (being very hopeful) the Emu.  I also went out on the new bridge to check the water level in the River.  Quite a good flow, but still plenty of sand visible.

The BoM shows that water level at the flood gauge (about 12km upstream) is well below any of the flood levels.

My birding started on the far side of the village looking out over the paddocks for the Emu. it wasn't there, and hasn't been seen for some time.  However a pair (making a few judgements about their level of friendliness) of Brown Falcons were perched on the windmill.

After checking the River I crossed the highway and spotted a single Cattle Egret with some Herefords.

Pulling into the gravel patch there were a lot of waterfowl  on the main pool.  I counted 218 Pacific Black Ducks, which was not well received by the eBird tolerance monitor until I put in a comment.  My full checklist is here.  The white breasts of the 33 Masked Lapwings stood out well.

It is not unusual to find a few Australian Shelduck here but a count of 21 was higher than normal.  It seemed that various forms of pair bonding (and aggression between the males) were going on.

On the Sunday I went to the airport.  It was a swamp: I spent quite a bit of time in 4WD on the basis that prophylaxis is more efficient than therapy!  Best bird was a Tawny-crowned Honeyeater on the fence near the terminal.

Poverty in East Gippsland

 On 17 May the ABC posted an article regarding the release of ATO tax statistics for 2021 -22.  My attention was drawn to the list of the 10 postcodes with the lowest average taxable income, which included at position 7 postcode 3889 in Victoria. This is effectively the locality of Bemm River and it's hinterland (see map below).  The data reported by ABC was :

The ABC commented on the two postcodes with the lowest income:

"The area taking in students studying at The University of Newcastle's main campus at Callaghan, postcode 2308, earned an average taxable income of $20,878.

The next poorest postcode was 2052, taking in the University of NSW area, with an average taxable income of $20,892."

 It could be expected that many of the residents of these areas would have bottom of the pecking order incomes ("Would you like fries with that?" etc).  It is also likely that they would have other sources of income (eg parents picking up the tab).  

The ABC didn't comment on code 3889.  As this is fairly close to where we live I decided to investigate.  My objective aim was to see what Census data could reveal about the area but I began by asking a couple of residents who I felt would have some insights their reactions.  No names, no pack drill (nor law suits).  Here are a few  of their comments:

"It's an area that's been impacted by the loss of the timber industry, the removal of the timber mills and the associated DEECA services means there is very little employment in places like Cann River. Even when the timber industry was at it's peak, this was always a lower class, blue-collar working community that would not have been high up the average income by postcode list."

"Firstly, other than store and pub and a few tradies, I'm guessing not many businesses plus maybe parks or whatever DWELP is now. Any state services (ambo?) might be people with residential addresses in other towns.  Secondly, assume that like mallacoota there are quite a few retired people (and maybe they have a few unemployed). There could be retirees whose residential/electoral address is there but mostly live elsewhere, perhaps giving an appearance that the working v non-working ratio, (and so income per capita) is higher than it actually is. "

My personal experience is Mallacoota (about 100km East of 3889) and one of my informants commented :

"Mallacoota has always been an isolated pocket of "wealth" amongst the working class poverty of Far East Gippsland. Some of Mallacoota's wealth is due to the abalone industry, but mostly it has come from external sea/tree changers."

In what follows I shall compare 3889 and the combination of codes 3891 and 3892, which make up my version of the Mallacoota District.  Here is a map of Postal Areas in Far East Gippsland, taken from the ABS Quickstats product for the 2021 Census (3890 is labelled mainly for completeness). 

Census Income Data

The obvious starting point is the Income distribution available from the Census results.  In the graphic below the denominator is the total number of persons in the two areas: 171 people in 3889 and 1304 people in 3891/2.

It is unfortunate that 15% of people in 3889 did not state an income.  My experience is that people tend not to report information where it reflects badly on people (eg they have a low income).  So my expectation is that if these folk had responded it would have boosted the 2 LH bars.  

A second comment is that 120 people did report an income in this question, compared to the 70 people summarised in the ATO data.  I believe this difference could largely be explained by people whose income is via Centrelink and similar sources not completing Tax Returns.

In summary, I believe the Census data is consistent with the ATO data.  This is a similar finding to other far more wide-ranging data which I encountered in my working life, including 15 years working in various Census-related positions.  (Reflecting on history, prior to 1981 it was considered this topic was too sensitive to include in the Census: however such appears not to be the case!  Looking to the future the ABS has published information about the use of administrative data to supplement the information collected directly: I have not investigated this as yet but it seems a major enhancement.)

Age profiles

Postal code 3889 has an unusual age profile as illustrated below.  Firstly a comparison with the whole of Victoria... 

... and then with Mallacoota (itself heavily biased towards and elderly or sea/tree-changer demographic.

Again this suggests that many in the 3889 community will be reliant on pensions (either Government of self funded) and likely to be relatively low in many cases.

Labour Force

As would be expected from the Age Profile above a high proportion of the population of 3889 are not in the Labour Force.  I have omitted the comparison with Victoria since that ould be obvious,

I attempted to show comparative data relating to industries for 3889 from the 2006 Census and it does show that some industries have vanished or declined.  It is difficult to make large statements about this as the area covered by the Postal Area has changed over the period (although I suspect that the population node is the village of Bemm River in both cases).  The map comes from Quickstats for the 2006 Census for Postal Code 3889.

Here is a 3 way Industry Profile - as expected from the Labour Force section above it is dominated  by the "Not Applicable" category which has grown significantly since 2006.

Clouds and mouths

 This covers a few snaps of the current dampness. The first three were an interesting collection of dark, eventually rain-bearing, clouds on the evening of 15 June.

Somewhat later in the month the evening view from the lounge was rather colourful

A facebook post mentioned the heavy seas on 16 June so I took myself to Bastion Point.  The seas were indeed heavy, but were so large that (while I was there anyway) that they were breaking before hitting the breakwater.

Another facebook post mention that a new Mouth was forming to the East of the current one.  That is shown in this image from Bastion Point.  Perhaps there will again be a beach at Bastion by next Summer? 

This snap from the end of the Pumping Station Track shows the position of the old and new mouths.  I suspect that at present they are both quite shallow so would be a challenger for boaters.  Given that the Bastion Ramp is also dodgy I suspect the divers and Gabo workers/visitors will be having a tough time.

The greyness of the sky is also reflected in the rainfall records.  A little over halfway through the month we have already recorded 216mm of rain: more than 3 times the median rainfall for June .  This places 2024 as 6th, of 45, heaviest rainfall for June (to get to 5th place is possible, only requiring a further 14mm).  The heaviest June, in 1978, was 309mm with two very heavy spells.  A day by day comparison of falls in the two months is in this chart.  

It is notable that BoM stations to our North seem to have recorded modest falls (around 40mm) while  Wunderground sites to our West have much more: Tamboon has 260mm while the Marlo Fire Station has 206mm.  (The BoM station at Orbost seems to have some 'issues'.) 

Another sunset set.

It has been quite cool outside so a nice fire is very pleasant indoors!

I give up on this weather!

In my now distant days in the workforce a colleague once said "I am rarely right, but by God I was wrong that time!"  A friend was talking about experiences as a management consultant and particularly an event at which he asked a group of executives to describe their worst cock-up.  Eventually it was the CEOs turn and he sat silently.  My friend asked him "Do you not have any mistakes."  The answer was "Oh no.  I'm just embarrassed for choice."

I recalled those comments after 

1. saying that the event of 2-3 June was not an East Coast Low (ECL) because it didn't come down the East Coast and
2. then looking at a BoM map site showing the national pressure maps for the previous 6 days. 

Here are a sample of the maps:

Converting this to Eastern Australian Time means adding 10 hours so this is 2200hrs on 1 June.

The next image is for 2200hrs on 2 June.

The 3rd image is for 1000hrs on 3 June.

Obviously the system did come down the coast, albeit a bit further offshore than usual.  So reflecting back on the reasons why I thought, at various times, this wasn't an East Coast Low:

1. During the event the Bairnsdale weather radar didn't show a mass of rain happening to our North and moving South.  Rather it showed rain to the West sending showers  - some intense - our way;
2. The winds seemed  to be coming from the South or West rather than the East; and, checking more recently more recently 
3. The weather stations to our North  (Green Cape, Moruya Airport; Ulladulla; and Nowra) didn't record a great amount of rain.

All of these can be explained by the low pressure system being a little further off the coast than is sometimes the case.  Thus the winds in our area were probably those from the anticlockwise circulation around the high pressure system, until the low was almost past us when the clockwise circulation arrived  with Southerly winds.

Whatever: I got it well wrong.  To quote Benny Hill "Learning all the time!"

Moving along to the situation on 6 -7 June.  Let us begin with two more pressure charts, from the "Interactive Weather and Wave Forecast Maps" series, for times of 6 June.  The first 1 is for 0400hrs on 6 June (ignore the reference to validity).

The second is for 0700 on 6 June

Matching these forecasts is a BoM heavy rainfall warning for the area in blue.

I was woken by the sound of heavy rain over-running the gutters at 0400hrs.  When I gave up trying to get back to sleep (about 0430) I was astonished to see my Weather Station (WS) showing a fall of 17mm.  Both the BoM sites showed modest falls so I checked the radar and it was almost clear (I didn't take a snip but this from 0644 AET gives a similar picture).

Having quoted England's greatest philosopher (Benny Hill) may I now cite Barcelona's contribution to scientific process (Manuel, from Fawlty Towers) "Que?".  

By 0600hrs my WS was showing 22mm (after 0.8mm on the evening of the 5th).  I have just checked my Nylex plastic gauge - which I emptied on the 5th - and it read 23mm.  So my WS is doing the right thing.  The chart below shows the situation to 0600hrs AET from the 3 sites already mentioned, and the Wundergound site in Clarke St.

Obviously a very nasty squall (or two) came over our house between 0300 and 0400.  The records from Clarke tend to back this up.  I have since found another Wunderground site in Shady Gully that is showing 18.3mm at 0750 which is pretty consistent with Clarke St (16.3mm at 0750) and my WS (23.2mm at 0750).  

As a means of assessing the squality of the falls the next chart show the amount of rain and the maximum rate for each hour as recorded on my WS.

The three periods with higher rates are all above 25mm/hr.  The database of WS records from February 2019 to end May 2024 has 46,179 records of which 2,640 (5.7%) have rainfall recorded.  Of the records with rainfall 344 (13.0%) have an associated rate > 25 mm/hr: so the three heavy falls are towards the upper end of rates, but not dramatically so (the 25 heaviest falls are all >100mm/hr).

What is in flower this month?

 At the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra a volunteer used to (and possibly still does) scour the gardens each month and compile a list of what was in flower.  This was provided to visitors to enable them to get more of a handle on what they were seeing.  We have thought that something similar would be a good idea for Mallacoota, basing it on what is held in the iNaturalist data base.

The way the project is set up means that all observations posted to iNaturalist in the area (see below) are automatically included.  So no need for special action (other than reporting sightings to iNaturalist) and I will add any new listings to my database each month.

Do other folk agree that this would be a Good Thing?

The project will be for an area I have defined as the scope of the U3 Mallacoota Plant Walks.  The area is shown as the pink polygon in this snip from Google Earth.  For context, I have also shown the boundaries of East Gippsland Shire and (approximately) Bega Valley Shire.

Note that I have ignored the State border as it is irrelevant to plants: they are more interested in soil, rainfall and sunshine!

My set of records from iNaturalist has (as at 6 June 2024) 839 elements.  They cover pretty much all types of life-form as shown in the page "Life Groups" in this Google Sheet.  I have focussed on the Plantae group for which we have 406 records and classified them to the month of observation.  The result is as shown in the page "# plant species x month".  Note that I have assumed that if a plant has been photographed it is flowering (or at least in bud): possibly some are only leaves and I have yet to work out how to resolve that for a sensible workload.

For the month of June there are 16 species in the set:

June species

Month	common_name	scientific_name	iconic_taxon_name	quality_grade
6		Styphelieae	Plantae	needs_id
6	apple-berries	Billardiera	Plantae	needs_id
6	black nightshade	Solanum nigrum	Plantae	research
6	Blue Dampiera	Dampiera stricta	Plantae	research
6	coast capeweed	Arctotheca populifolia	Plantae	research
6	Common Apple-berry	Billardiera mutabilis	Plantae	research
6	cudweeds, everlastings, and pussytoes	Gnaphaliinae	Plantae	needs_id
6	European Searocket	Cakile maritima	Plantae	research
6	fireweed groundsel	Senecio linearifolius	Plantae	research
6	flowering plants	Angiospermae	Plantae	needs_id
6	guinea-flowers	Hibbertia	Plantae	needs_id
6	juniper wattle	Acacia ulicifolia	Plantae	research
6	Mitre Weed	Mitrasacme polymorpha	Plantae	research
6	showy parrot-pea	Dillwynia sericea	Plantae	research
6	Sweet Wattle	Acacia suaveolens	Plantae	research
6	Woolly Pomaderris	Pomaderris lanigera	Plantae	research

The entry for Styphelieae is for a taxon where several identifiers have come up with possible identifications for a heath recently included.  There is not currently a consensus answer.  I think in the online observations this is currently labelled 'Genus Leucopogon': the confusion deepens as a 3rd observer seems to have withdrawn their suggestion!  There has been further discussion (see https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/219922166) which has resolved the identification to Leucopogon collinus at Research Grade but I have left the table as above to illustrate the topic. This exchange is an excellent example of how the iNaturalist system adds to knowledge about Life in the area.

The entry 'Angiospermae' - ie Flowering Plants - is particularly unhelpful but may get improved as experts look at the image (which is not of outstanding quality)!  It has indeed been improved to Lobelia purpurascens - largely based on the leaves - but I have left the more general term for narrative purposes.

For a few other taxa there is yet to be an opinion from any other observer so the record is not yet Research Grade: as I further develop the system it is a trivial matter to either restrict the reports to 'Research Grade' entries or to sort by quality assessment so that the Research Grade records are listed first.  Watch this space.

Weather event of 2 - 3 June 2024

The Bureau of Meteorology (B0M) forecast a rain event for Mallacoota over the second and third of June with 25% probability forecasts of up to 20mm for the 2nd, and 40mm for the third.  This has turned out to be very conservative with my weather station (WS) recording 33.2mm on calendar 2nd and 68.8mm up to 1300 hrs on the 3rd (totalling to 102mm).  I will update this as time goes by.  (For comparison the BoM station at the Airport has recorded 124mm to 1300.)  The chart shows the hourly falls at my WS.

These falls have had a noticeable impact on my pro-rata estimates of the annual fall: the current (0800) value of that guesstimate is 966mm compared to a median annual fall of 903mm.

Having just ticked over the 0900 reset the final record by BoM for the day from 0900 yesterday is 112mm.  This is the highest June rainfall recorded at the airport since records began there in 1975.  Looking at all months it is the 8th heaviest daily fall (the top step on the podium is 20 May 1978 with 192 mm.

The rain rate has varied quite a lot suggesting a lot of squalls have been embedded in the falls (see discussion of differences below).

To get an idea of the spread of rain I cover 4 sites as shown below.  The values are falls from 0000hrs on 2 June to 0500hrs on 3 June:

My WS             69.6mm

BoM Airport    79.4 mm

BoM Gabo       36.0 mm

Clarke St          70.4 mm

My initial thoughts were to have severe doubts about the value for Gabo, since it is only 17km from the airport station and both are equally exposed to the West wind currently blowing.  However on comparing the hourly recordings from Gabo, Airport and my WS it seems that the situation is more that the Airport station is right on the edge of the system and the squalls are having a reduced impact on the sites further East.  I have put the data - to 7am, it takes some fiddling to get the BoM data formatted as is needed - in a Google sheet.

It is always difficult to examine radar images for this area since Mallacoota is at the reliability limit of the Bairnsdale tower.  However the image from my laptop computer at 0738hrs tends to support the above theory.

A freeze-action attempt from my phone (also based on BoM data but I think from a slightly earlier time) gives a somewhat different look and feel, but does support the theory of Mallacoota being on the edge.  Further the blue areas embedded in the white - especially the rain area approaching from the South - indicate squally cells in the general murky drizzle.

The wind is also notable.  The highest gust on the 3rd - up to 0800hrs) is 49.9kph, while he Airport has registered 80kph and Gabo 95kph.  These are about the normal relativities.

A question arises as to how the BoM performed in this exercise.  At a simplistic level the forecasts were so much below the actual event that they could be given a "fail".  However some ameliorating issues need to be included in any assessment.

• When an event breaks records it is very difficult to forecast it as there is no equivalent history.
• As noted above Mallacoota was right on the edge of the event and exactly what was recorded where was to some extent random due to small squalls.
• The forecasts are probability based not lines in the same.

I am tempted to rate this a fail, but not an egregious fail.  However they did forecast an unusually high level of rain for the two days so warning signs were there.  My view ends up somewhere between "must try harder" and "could do better".  Another wet patch is due Thursday - Friday so lets see how that pans out.

Here are a few photos from a visit to Betka around 11am on the 3rd where the surf was UP..

The next two photos have a Hooded Plover as the target (two of them were present).

Lots of gulls.  Note also the 'kelp line' showing the height of the water before it broke out.

On getting home, the sun was out giving a nice rainbow.

As well as the rainfall bringing water down the rivers the wind from the South and West  has been push water into the Inlet.  This has raised the level of the Lake as shown by this image of the marsh next to Fisheries Jetty: normally there is no water visible in the vegetated area.

May 2024 WEATHER REPORT

On average it was quite an average month!  Of course that can simply means that the highs and lows balance each other which is the pretty much the case with temperatures.  Dampness, measured by rainfall or humidity, was a little higher than normal.

Rain 

We ended the month with 80.4mm of rain amounting to 114% of median.  Perhaps best described as a little above average.

Looking at a time series of rainfall for May the outcome for 2024 is not outstanding.

I have also looked at the monthly totals for some nearby sites.

site	Fall (mm)
BoM airport	82.6
BoM Gabo	96.2
Clarke St	83.8
Angophora Dr	80.4

The Gabo site shows a fall of 26mm on 13 May while the other 3 sites show 0.2mm for that day.  I think this is a recording error and have reported it to BoM.

I have also used pro-rata estimation to guess the likely annual fall.  I have removed the earlier part of the series as it is distorted by some heavy falls in January.

 It is showing an interesting pattern as systems hit the area and are then followed by a dry spell.  The current value (779mm) is well below the annual median (904 mm) and the total fall year to the end of May is 92% of the median fall for that period.

Temperatures

The anomaly for the month ended at +0.22C, so a little bit warm.  The development of the anomaly through the month shows gradual recovery from a very cold start.

The anomaly Time Series still shows an upwards trend in the 12 month moving average: this appears to be in line with expert opinion (at least as reported by the ABC).

The historic daily maximum and minimum values for the month have a fairly strong downwards trend through the month.  That is shown (but not significantly) for the daily minimums for this month but the daily maxima show a weak upwards trend - not surprising given the very high values for the last two days of the month.

I have begun to pay some attention to the daily ranges of temperatures, but have not yet worked out a standard approach to examining them. Here are the historic and current ranges.

The relative stability of the historic series and fluctuations in the 2024 series are to be expected.  An interesting point - and an example of an issue I need to work on - is the comparison of 31 May with the preceding three days.  The range for the 30th is small because of a high value for the minimum on that day (which occurred at 2200hrs!).  I shall try to compile a special report on this topic.

Minimum temperatures

The lowest temperature recorded in the month was 5.8C on the 27th, while the average minimum was 9.13C a little below the long term average and a little above 2023.

There were 6 days in which the minimum was >1SD below the monthly average (mainly towards the end of the month) and 3 days in which it was >1SD above the average.  None of these coincided with maxima of similar significance.

Restricting the observations to the 6 years for which I have records from home shows average minima quite tightly grouped between 9C and 10C, with 2024 in the mix.

Maximum Temperatures

The highest maximum temperature for the month was 24.1C on the 29th: very warm for that end of the month.  The 30th at 23.5 C was also hot for the date.  The average temperature for the month was 18.9C, above average and well above 2023.  However even deleting those two extremes the average was still 0.3C above average: so a warm set of maxima.

There were 5 days in which the maximum temperature was >1SD above the average for the month, three of which were 28th - 30th.  Only 1 day with a maximum >1SD below the average.

Again restricting observations to my records from home, 2024 is on the upper edge of the series.

Humidity

A rather humid period especially in the early part of the month. The very high afternoon readings coincide with one of the rainy periods. 

Both of the charts for the standard times show this month to be more humid than average and 2023.

Wind

According to my WS this was the least windy month - by a considerable margin - since I started recording.  I suspect this is an artefact of the relatively poor exposure to wind.  And will not be analysing this further.