1st Day w. No Rain Anywhere In Australia In Met. History; "Catastrophic" Fire Conditions In NSW

[hatrack]

EDIT

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting hot, dry conditions for Tuesday with highs approaching 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and winds gusting to 80 kilometers per hour (50 mph). That means any fires that do spark could spread rapidly and is why the Rural Fire Service is warning of catastrophic conditions—the worst type of warning—for large parts of the state. The warning system was implemented in 2009, and Tuesday marks the first time a catastrophic warning has been issued for Sydney, Australia’s largest city. The metro area is home to nearly 6 million people, so this is the equivalent of the entire Atlanta metro area facing the risk of catastrophic wildfires.

In anticipation of the extreme fire risk, the government of New South Wales has declared a state of emergency for the next seven days. The state has also closed 575 schools (Queensland to the north has also done the same), and the military has scrambled helicopters and is prepared to assist with battling blazes. For people living in the areas of highest risk, the danger cannot be overstated.

“Homes that are specifically designed and built to withstand bushfires are not done so for catastrophic conditions,” New South Wales Rural Fire Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told CNN affiliate 9 News. “Catastrophic conditions are where lives are lost, it’s where people die.”

Other parts of Australia are also facing serious fire weather this week, though none are as populous as New South Wales. The entire country (save a few parts of Tasmania) faced a day without rain on Monday, the first time in recorded history that’s ever happened. But the current weather is only one piece of the bush fire puzzle. The past 12 months have been among the driest on record for large parts of Australia. The border of New South Wales and Queensland—the epicenter of the fire outbreak last week—is one of the regions hardest hit by drought.

EDIT

https://earther.gizmodo.com/its-where-people-die-australia-faces-unprecedented-cat-1839777881

[Eugene]

1. Australia fires could be out of control for months, says fire chief

Source: Associated Press

Australia fires could be out of control for months, says fire chief

Ben Doherty in Sydney
@bendohertycorro
Tue 12 Nov 2019 14.29 GMT
First published on Tue 12 Nov 2019 10.51 GMT

It could be months before eastern Australia has more than a million hectares of bushfires under control, the New South Wales fire chief has warned, as the country faces one of its worst bushfire outbreaks.

-snip-

Shane Fitzsimmons, the commissioner of the NSW rural fire services, said: “The real challenge is we have an enormous amount of country that is still alight. They won’t have this out for days, weeks, months. Unfortunately the forecast is nothing but above-average temperatures and below-average rainfall over the next few months and we’ve still got summer around the corner.”

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/12/australia-fires-rage-out-of-control-catastrophic-day

[NickB79]

2. Sooner or later Australians will become climate refugees

I've got a college friend who married an Australian woman 15 yr ago. They're debating moving back to Minnesota. Below zero winters suck, but they're not as terrifying as firestorms.