50C . . .
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I lived through one of those on 7 February 2009 but thankfully not close to the fires though. It was still appalling. Car in shade in carport said temp was 50C. It was blowing a force 7 or 8 and the sky was dark brown. The air smelled of smoke from the fires 40Km away.
My eldest had just started school. One of teachers in her Primary School and his entire family were killed. She still talks about it as one of his daughters was in Aisling’s class. It was like Mars up around Kinglake and Marysville 9 months afterwards.
Scott Morrison and his colleagues are very, very irresponsible.
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They can soon throw some more fuel on that fire. C4 news tonight was grim
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Yeah, it was a part of Spring/Summer growing up. I joined the CFS because we lived in the Hills Face Zone and were often only metres from the fire front. Frightening!
The article notes that:
Melbourne is forecast to reach 39C on Wednesday and 41C on Friday,
These are unprecedented temperatures for December. It is the kind of heat you really only see in late January/early February. At least this is a dry heat as relative humidity is usually very low in Melbourne. On the same days Sydney is forecast to see 44+ in Penrith. Relative humidity in Sydney is usually fairly high (it is almost always muggy there) so what 40+ will feel like Gawd only knows…
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Watching strayan Masterchef on prime at the moment - was initially fun wheeling out the fake oz accent ‘that looks like shit on toast mate’ when the contestant fucked it all up… Now is a kind of death march as we are within spitting distance of the end of 60 fecking episodes.
They had some good guests, with nigella, ramsay, camilla and her tampon and heston has been hinted at for later. Still can’t wait for it to be done with.
Which series is it? Started watching about 3 seasons ago, and I know what you mean about just how fucking long it is. Absolutely shits all over the UK version imho, not least because no one shouts “Cooking doesn’t get tougher than this” at any point.
Season 10 big anniversary special thing. It’s bonza mate.
Meanwhile, here is what Deputy prime minister Michael McCormack, who is acting PM while Scott Morrison is overseas on holiday, said to Climate Change protesters today:
You are wasting your time.
Go and do something productive. Go and donate your time to meals on wheels and something like that. The fact is, the PM is not there. He is having a well deserved holiday.
Those people who are shouting and screaming … go and help someone out in need. Do a good turn rather than shouting and screaming and holding up placards that not always the words are spelt correctly on …
He’s entitled to a holiday. The PM takes a week off, he is entitled to that.
So, the country has the hottest day on record, bushfires are burning out of control, Sydney harbour looks like this:
https://twitter.com/tomgodfreynews/status/1207515743023034368?ref_src=twsrc^tfw
Nothing to see here, the PM is on holiday and Deputy prime minister Michael McCormack is in charge. He did manage to make another statement though, from the headquarters of the Rural Fire Service when he big upped an increase in coal exports:
We will wait and see, but Adani has been ticked off by the Queensland government. So Adani is going ahead. The fact is, this is going to lead to more coal exports. We need more coal exports.
The prime minister is going to have a number of talks with his Indian counterpart, Modi. Talks with business leaders of course. We need to continue and enhance our trade and negotiations with India.
So there your have it. No climate change, more coal, nothing to see here (not even the fire crews who were enveloped in flame yesterday). Go home people. Take a holiday. Vicentia beach near Jervis Bay in NSW looks wonderful:
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Fuuuuck
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The guardian had a thing which showed how big the fire is. You can overlay it on the uk. Coast to coast from hull to Birmingham and moving at what? 30mph so Manchester to Preston in an hour… really scary shit
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It’s certainly is scary shit - some of the footage looks apocalyptic.
The huge fires of February 2009 in Victoria went through the treetops which was a nightmare. Bush fires normally travel along the ground meaning that the leaves etc are ignited behind the fire front. On 7 February 2009 Melbourne reached 46.4 °C, the hottest ever recorded in an Australian capital city (our car said 50 °C when parked in the shade under a carport. It was blowing a gale with gusts of 100–120 km/h according to the records. This meant that as the fire came through the tree tops it was travelling so fast it was impossible to outrun using a fast car.
Ordinarily after a house is lost to a bush fire the chimney stack and galvanised steel roof sheets will survive. In Kingslake and Marysville the fires were so hot that the chimneys often collapsed/exploded and the tin roof sheets melted. This was a also a fast moving front. When it had passed there was often nothing left.
This is kinglake after the firefront went through:
We travelled up there months afterwards on the way to a family event. It looked like this for miles and miles:
I’ll never forget it. We went out of our way by about 70Km on the journey home to avoid seeing the damage a second time.
I note with some anger that the Australian PM is still in climate change denial mode today.
Jesus, it’s the set of The Road.
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You have no idea. It was really horrific and we were nowhere near it. It was still fucked up beyond belief in late 2011 when I last went up there.
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`
`The ring of fire around Sydney is as angry and as frightening as we've seen. 20,000 people are tonight in the path of the mega fire rolling down the Blue Mountains into the town of Lithgow. #9News | https://t.co/ZiY2jT1X46 pic.twitter.com/zBuzyrUX3u
— Nine News Sydney (@9NewsSyd) December 21, 2019
Nightmare stuff
One of Claire’s old school friends who lives in the Adelaide suburbs, pretty much in the bush apparently, has come back over to Liverpool for Christmas.
She just decided that there was fuck all she could do to protect her house so she’s put everything she owns into a city centre storage facility for the foreseeable.
She also said some seriously big and prestigious vineyards are in real danger @HughJanus, have you heard anything about that?