The Big Wet

An intense East Coast Low worked its way down the coast over the weekend, dumping hundreds of millimeters of rain on fire grounds on the coast and on parched drought stricken country inland.
In many areas there was flash flooding and strong winds brought down trees and power lines. Huge surf caused damaging beach erosion.

Thankfully for us the rain wasn't too torrential and the fire ravaged ground was able to soak up the 200mm+ with minimal erosion.
Our creek, after 9 months being dry, began to flow again, dams and tanks filled and brown pasture and lawns seem to turn green overnight.

Now a tropical cyclone (hurricane) is gathering strength in the Coral Sea is moving towards Australia.
Cyclone Uesi is currently a category 3 storm located just to the north of New Caledonia.
It could enter Australian waters as early as tomorrow.
But cyclones usually don’t drift as far south as New South Wales as their fuel is warm water and  the further south they go the cooler the water gets, reducing the storm’s strength.

However, the path of cyclones is notoriously hard to predict. They tend to have a mind of their own.
The most likely scenario, according to the experts, is the system will stay just far enough offshore so heavy rain and gales remain off the coast.
But if the system was to be just a little closer it could bring further flooding as the coastal land is now pretty much saturated.
Update:13th February.
The category 2 tropical storm is heading for beautiful Lord Howe Island which is around 500km off the coast of NSW.
The are bunkering down for winds of 95-135km/hr.

But the island is well used to foul weather and is fully prepared.
This island is a tourist mecca which limits the number of visitors to 400, the same number as the permanent population. It is serviced by QANTAS with small aircraft eg.Dash 8 as the runway is a very short 886m. Getting to and leaving the island is always fraught with potential weather delays.