I got asked a couple of times to go over there to help out, but not having a passport kept me away from doing that (I couldn't go anyway as I had kids to look after at the time as well).

Well we've just been in the middle of 2 storm cells colliding with more coming and the rain is dumping on the last of those 2 marathon fires that are left to the NE of here so hopefully that will be the end of those too.

Cheers.

Nullarbor Highway is still closed due to fires, which flared up & broke containment lines again. Been closed for 11 days, and still no idea when it will reopen (main road from Western Australia to the rest of the country)
Perth to Adelaide , roughly 2,700km. The only other sealed road is via Katherine, roughly 6,730km.

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Grant
Darwin NT

There's a low moving around up here that was expected to form in to a Cyclone, but the latest forecast has it remaining a low till it passes Darwin and heads to sea again.
So we should be in for a very wet and windy weekend.

No chance of a cyclone, but we're expecting wind (up to 90km/h) and rain from sometime tomorrow & through Saturday, depending on the speed & direction of the low.

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Grant
Darwin NT

A big line of storms here yesterday evening dumped 43mm here leaving us with a smoke/haze free start to today and hopefully it was enough to do something about that last big fire just to the NE of the village.

We kicked off here today at a clear 15C while 32C is expected with the chance of more afternoon/evening storms which are expected to hang around here until at least Thursday of next week, but I certainly hope that I can get a chance to mow the yard by Monday or my little toy mower is going to have a hard time of it.

Anyhow it's time for another coffee break.

Cheers.

Good luck guys, wish I could send you all the rain we've had here for the past 24 hrs. :-)

Nullarbor Highway is still closed due to fires, which flared up & broke containment lines again. Been closed for 11 days, and still no idea when it will reopen (main road from Western Australia to the rest of the country).
Perth to Adelaide , roughly 2,700km. The only other sealed road is via Katherine, roughly 6,730km.

Finally re-opened yesterday.


Here are some before and after photos of areas affected by the fires.

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Grant
Darwin NT

No chance of a cyclone, but we're expecting wind (up to 90km/h) and rain from sometime tomorrow & through Saturday, depending on the speed & direction of the low.

The track of the low was much more southerly than expected, so here in Darwin while we got some good rain, it wasn't nearly a much as initially forecast, and only some squalls going though so not much wind either.
However a small Islan off the coast did get some rain- Dum In Mirrie got 562mm in 24hrs. A new NT record if confirmed.

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Grant
Darwin NT

The fires are still burning, but for those areas the fires have gone through the clean up is underway. It's estimated there are 8,600km of roads that have been affected by fire (so far), not to mention houses & sheds etc that weren't burnt out, but the trees nearby were, along with the corridors for power transmission lines- and this is just in Victoria.
Army crews face the daunting job of removing 'killer' trees

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Grant
Darwin NT

Well last weekend Saturday was a cloudy 18-28C with a shower and storm thrown in (only 5mm though and YTD:60mm) while Sunday was a cloudy and windy day 16C (felt like 15C) to 18C (felt like 14C).

On the fire front we're now down to 14 fires around here, but still enough to keep our local brigades local, and the smoke haze is only seen at a distance.

I also spent the morning mowing the yard again and I collected another gearbox for my old girl over the weekend with which a friend will help me with that job next weekend so I can get up to speed again.

Anyhow, now that I've cooled down a bit from that mowing it must be time for a beer (or 3). ;-)

Cheers.

The cooler and damper weather here over the last few days now have the active fire count in this region down to 9 and under 90 state wide (it did reach 167) while good rain is expected over the next few days which should get those numbers down even further.

We've now received 66.5mm of rain here this year and that's expected to be near doubled by the end of this weekend (according to the experts anyway) and the grass is growing like crazy, but it maybe mid next week before I'll get another dry chance to mow it again (it looks like it needs mowing already and I only did it a few days ago).

Yesterday's temp range was 16C (felt like 14C) to wet 25C while today got started at a damp 16C with 24C expected as we await more rain that's heading this way already (it'll likely get here by lunchtime or not long after that).

Cheers.

This is certainly a land of droughts, fires and flooding rains. Flood alerts are now out for this region and the river here is up (so it looks my gearbox swap is going to have to wait as my buddy who is helping me won't be able to get across the river). There was 20.5mm in the gauge this morning and 11.5mm yesterday (taking our total up to 98.5mm now) with another 2 days of this to go, but down on the coast amounts of up to 6 times that have been recorded so some landslides are expected on those roads heading down the escarpment to the coast that the fires have totally burnt out.

This rain now has it down to 3 active fires in this corner of the state still going, but those are expected to be out by the time that this rain period is finished (if not before), so some of our crew members are now down around the southern end of the state fighting those fires down there.

Now us in this region will switch from our fire maps to our Live Traffic map because as soon as the Pacific Hwy gets closed due to flooding then the road out front (the New England Hwy) is going to get very busy.

We only made it to a wet 20C (felt like 21C) here yesterday and I'm not so sure that we'll make it to 21C here today, currently it's a drizzly 17C (feels like 15C).

Cheers.

Looks like rain all round at the moment. We had some good falls yesterday, and while it's meant to be drier this weekend the forecast if for increasing rain as next week progresses.
Yesterday it was actually cooler (for a while) during the day (24°c) than it was overnight (26°c).

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Grant
Darwin NT

It's been an eventful day.

Golf ball-sized hail, a town engulfed by a giant dust storm, two people struck by lightning — and that's just 24 hours in Australia

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Grant
Darwin NT

Well we've been having high 20C temps here of late (at least we missed out on those predicted 30C+ days) and the only fire still active in this region is the Myall Creek Road fire down on the coast, which is surprising considering all the rain that that area has had, but sadly down the other end of the state where things arn't so good a C-130 large air tanker crash hurts NSW bushfire fight, but RFS says it will 'adapt' killing all 3 U.S. crew members.

We've had 105mm here so far this month and there should be more as more showers and storms are on the forecast for every day until the end of the month.

Cheers.

Best wishes Wiggo.
Fingers crossed.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

Thanks Mike.

Cheers.

We're down to 58 active fires state wide now with all bar 9 of them down in the southern half of the state.

I can also tell you that I've had enough of these 30-31C days, but we still have 3 to go, and I can't wait for next week to get here so that we can drop back down into the 20's.

We also got lucky and had a small group of storms pass over us late yesterday afternoon that left 10mm behind (YTD:122.5mm, almost 5"), but sadly they didn't cool things down by much and more are expected again today (if they don't just skirt around us again like they've been doing for most of this week) while 31C is expected here again today.

Also trying to keep up with the grass mowing is proving a task in itself as the grass is growing like crazy and has turned what was a dust bowl of a yard into a jungle in just over a month. :-(

Anyhow my 1st load of washing is ready to go out on the line so I better get that done and the 2nd load started.

Cheers.

We're down to 58 active fires state wide now with all bar 9 of them down in the southern half of the state.

Expect that to get worse over the next few days with the horror weather that's already begun down there.

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Grant
Darwin NT

State of Emergency declared in the ACT (Australian Capital Territory).
Heatwave & out of control fire (Smoke plume visible on the weather Radar).


How many months have these fires been going for? Still smoke poring off of the SE coastal area over the ocean on the satellite loop.

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Grant
Darwin NT

They started up in the north of this state back in the beginning of last September (about 40km away on the 4th), then they passed over the border into Queensland before heading on down south.

Yes the southern third of the state still has quite a bit of ground fuel to burn off yet, but they're nowhere near the 4 months of choking smoke that we put up with yet.

There was no rain here today, but I did get half the yard mowed this evening and I'll get the other half done in the morning and then I'll recover until Tuesday when I'll get back under the old girl to disconnect the linkages, oil lines and all but 2 bolts holding the tranny on.

Cheers.