Yes the google expert trumps the learned scientist once again. Can you please tell us what next weeks loto numbers are going to be while your at it?

the explanation of what happened by this amateur sailor sounds reasonable, but to blame so many people for being 'unprepared' doesn't.

if these troughs, depressions, monsoonal events and strong sub-cyclonic winds weren't noticed by the bean counters at the Bureau of Meteorology, maybe it's because they were distracted by other things, like rising river levels quickly flooding one town after another so maybe some slight panic occurred because the word 'normal' didn't seem to apply to a 'once in a century' event. Plus lack of a coordinated response, plus the release of water from the Wivenhoe Dam perhaps at the wrong time, but who knows, really, but maybe it'll all come out in the wash.

All we need is for another 'expert' or two to lecture us on why we should build more dams to check floods.

It's all well and good saying "it could have been predicted" after the fact and, as such, I'm afraid there will always be doubters. I don't know enough about meteorology to support or contradict you, but I do wonder with how much conviction you forecasted that this would happen. It's one thing saying it COULD happen, and another altogether saying it WILL or even MOST LIKELY WILL happen.

To be honest, the fact that the BOM missed this one doesn't rattle my faith in them all that much. Here in the tropical summer, the BOM is an essential part of life. I find that they tend to err on the side of caution - blow things out to be worse than they actually are. On Christmas day, we were told we would have anywhere up to 600mm of rainfall. In most parts, the falls were less than 100mm. We tend to be over-prepared rather than under-prepared. If the Bureau says they couldn't predict this with ample time to put warnings out, I tend to believe them.

Gee, that was quick. Half of Queensland is still under water and this guy is blaming the BOM, media and Government.

This is going to sound awful and so 18th century but there are some things that are beyond human agency to know. This is one of them.

One day, maybe we'll be able to predict with 100 percent accuracy weather outcomes - about the same time everyone in Australia can predict Saturday night's Powerball results.

With this one, the proper course of action for the next seven days is to dig deep in to your wallet and give generously to our Queensland mates.

"WHY BUILD DAMS WHEN THERE WILL BE NO RAIN?"
Anyone else remember this insanity from the pro-AGW lobby? What happened to the continuous drought predicted by the Green movement??
All is quiet,now, as if these things were never said.

Anna Bligh built a prohibitively expensive desalination plant partly because of the 'endless drought' fears generated by climate change activism which has invaded climate science. Had dams been built two problems would have been mitigated, flooding and water supply.

No-one is learning from their mistakes. That is the problem. The opinion of the same fools will be believed again.

A similar flood happened in 1974 and it will happen again. To that extent it is a predictable event. After 1974, measures were taken and a dam was built to mitigate against flooding. This time nothing will be done other than a argument and the Greens stopping any development which benefits Australia.

The Wivenhoe dam did precious little to help, mainly because avaricious 'developers' & their political beneficiaries chose to keep building on known flood plains. Far too many residents had extremely poor memories and / or they swallowed hook, line & sinker, the popular political / bureaucratic spiel 'trust us'. Personally I'd rather trust a deadly snake than any politician or bureaucrat.