SPQR,

Thanks for that - it's actually quite an interesting phenomenon.

Wind speed at sea is one thing, but when you get land involved, it can be something else entirely. Unless you have local Doppler readings, no wind speed reports mean very much.

When you hear boaties talking about bullets, they are usually not talking about things that come out of a gun, but gusts of wind. In many anchorages in Queensland you will be sheltering behind an island, or part there off. This usually means that there will be one or a few quite rugged ridges from a hundred to many hundred of meters high, between you & the direction of the prevailing wind.

In these anchorages you are protected from the sea, [waves] but often, not the wind. The steep ridges will stop the wind for a short while, but it will build up pressure, & then a "bullet" of wind will come roaring over, [or around] the ridge, often at a multiple of 2 or 3 times the prevailing wind speed. The direction of the wind in a bullet can be from almost any point of the compass.

This can lead to a very uncomfortable night in a boat, but in a cyclone, things get more deadly. A mile or two inland a high quality structure can have alternating direction & strength gusts tear it apart, while a lean too shed next door is not damaged, as it never received even half the wind of it's neighbour.

This is why mangrove creeks offer such good protection. The friction of blowing over a Km or 2 of level tree tops reduces & stabilises the wind speed & direction. Usually a lot of rain raises the level of water over the mud they grow in, helping to support them, from being broken or blown over.

Fester

according to many reports Wivenhoe was full at 200% capacity and water was released in the days leading up to the Brisbane flood to 'save' the dam. Some claim the amounts and timings of the releases actually added to the expected flood level. Anyway that is to be covered by the official enquiry.

Hydrologists predictions about the height of the flood keep changing, up and down. Less than 2 hours before the flood peak in Brisbane they were still predicting a higher peak than 74. It was laughable the way they downgraded the prediction in those last two hours. It wasn't until approx 30 minutes before the peak they advised the level 'might' be about 1 metre below the 74 level.

Hydrologists up here during the floods seemed more like race-callers.

For a science communicator, the author is poorly informed about climate science.

If he were to conduct a scientific literature search, he would find (a) that there is no scientific evidence that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions have had a measurable effect on average global temperature, and (b) that there is no scientific evidence that there are more climatic emergency events at the moment than in the past or that these are more frequent or more dangerous.

Instead of remaining in a state of warmist-propaganda inebriation, the author should sober up by reading the 2010 published book, "A Guide to Climate Change Lunacy", by Mark Lawson, investigative science journalist, science graduate and OLO contributor, which reviews the state of climate science.

And that reference is the one we take as gospel. right.

You can find a graph of Wivenhoe Dam levels here:

http://www.seqwater.com.au/public/dam-levels

While the dam did reach a high level, it was not at that level when the rain started, so clearly the dam did have some mitigating effect. The mitigating effect would have been greater were Wivenhoe not essential for Brisbane's water supply, as a lower level could then have been maintained.

<Hydrologists up here during the floods seemed more like race-callers.>

Is that a comment on their ability or the quality of data available to them?