Welcome To Melbourne


Photo from The Voxel Agents

A roundup of the freak Melbourne storm, from ABC News Melbourne HQ, with the great shot of a journalist reporting on the storms, holding an umbrella, inside a building, due to the amount of water pouring in through the roof.

Holy Fuck!



Chinaapek details on the above incredible vid of flash flooding in Melbourne earlier today :

I was there having coffee, the sky turned grey within seconds. Withinsecond, hail storm. Within 3 minutes, the street has gone chaos. It was a wave pool and flying branches and bins.

Melbourne's Flinders Street, a few minutes after storm clouds appeared :



Ballistic Freak Hail Storm Slams Melbourne

Now this is 3D :

The storm become curiouser and curiouser for Clemence Harvey, of South Yarra, who was watching the new Alice in Wonderland film with her 13-year-old in a packed theatre at the Jam Factory when water started pouring in front of the screen.

"Water started pouring through the ceiling and a torrent of water was pouring right in front of the screen, then they put a very large bucket down."

And it isn't over yet.

Seriously, how much testing do the weather machines need? They work, okay?

Now they're just showing off.


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Melbourne Rocks

It's not often you get to write a headline like that about Melbourne, but tonight it is true.

A small earthquake, measuring about 4.6 on the Richter scale, followed by a tremor, has rattled homes and buildings across numerous suburbs, up into the Yarra Valley and Kilmore.

Some report the shaking lasting from 5 to 10 seconds. No injuries or major damage reported in the media yet, but emergency services are getting so swamped with calls as they've asked people to stop calling unless they're injured or in a serious emergency situation.

Best description what the Melbourne earthquake felt like, so far :

"...it felt like a very long truck was driving past or maybe the washing machine getting extremely excited."

More here

UPDATE : Correction, it was a 4.7.

About three hours before Melbourne rumbled, a volcano in Indonesia erupted.

Major Australian City Running Out Of Drinking Water

Vegetable Crops Destroyed By Drought, Production To Drop By Two-Thirds

The primary dam supplying the majority of Melbourne's drinking water is only weeks away from draining down to a level regarded as critical.

Within a year, and without heavy rains, the Thomson dam is expected to be dry.

The Victorian government is weathering a storm of criticism for relying on rain falls that are clearly not guaranteed to occur.

But extremely low levels of fresh water are not only the problem with the dam. According to this story in the Melbourne Age, "equipment needed to pump the dead water from the dam is not ready, meaning Melbourne could face a water crisis in quality and quantity...."

At the same time as harsh water restrictions are expected to become a reality across the state, more than half the dam's water washes down river to meet irrigation demands.

The claims are made by former Melbourne Water hydrologist Geoff Crapper and engineer Ron Sutherland. Their latest predictions follow their forecasts about the Thomson dam last year, which contradicted Melbourne Water's projections but were later proven true.

"The Government is taking a punt on the weather to solve the crisis … while an outrageous amount of water is being wasted every day," Mr Crapper said.

Also from The Age :

Water supplies in Melbourne's main dam are set to fall below 20 per cent for the first time.

Rural water levels have fallen to 25 per cent, with paddocks turning to dust in parts of the state, a separate Government report shows.

Melbourne storage levels are estimated to fall by an average of 0.5 per cent a week.

The water restrictions due to come into effect within weeks are referred to as 'Stage 4' and will see Melbourne residents banned (under threat of heavy fines) from watering gardens and lawns and they will also not be allowed to use fresh water to wash their cars, except "car windows, mirrors and lights".

Rural farmers are facing a drought unlike anything in living memory. Production of vegetable crops is predicted to fall by two-thirds in the coming months.

The city of Melbourne could realistically be facing severe water and fresh food shortages by the end of 2007.