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Wild weather in Tasmania

The area targeted on 5 June was the Western side of the Upper Derwent catchment, that is Lake St Clair and Lake King William with the actual cloud seeding just north of Great Lake (upwind of the target area - that's how it works).

None of those storages spilled during the floods and indeed the presence of the Great Lake dam in particular reduced, not increased, flooding downstream as did pumping from Shannon Lagoon into Great Lake. The presence of Lake King William (Clark Dam at Butlers Gorge) reduced flow into the Derwent rather than increasing it.

With or without cloud seeding, in the absence of Hydro infrastructure generally the floods would have been greater not lesser than what actually occurred.

The above is my own view and does not necessarily reflect any official opinion on the matter.

But for what it's worth, the politics are such that Hydro will probably cop the blame if anything bad happens really. Someone's dog started barking, their car broke down, locked their keys in the car, too cold, too hot, too wet, too dry, power's too expensive, power's too cheap. Might as well blame Hydro for all of it really.

For those of us who know the real truth behind the whole energy saga over the past 6 months and with an understanding of Tasmanian politics, well let's just say there's a dangerous game being played here in terms of who gets the blame.
 
The area targeted on 5 June was the Western side of the Upper Derwent catchment, that is Lake St Clair and Lake King William with the actual cloud seeding just north of Great Lake (upwind of the target area - that's how it works).

None of those storages spilled during the floods and indeed the presence of the Great Lake dam in particular reduced, not increased, flooding downstream as did pumping from Shannon Lagoon into Great Lake. The presence of Lake King William (Clark Dam at Butlers Gorge) reduced flow into the Derwent rather than increasing it.

With or without cloud seeding, in the absence of Hydro infrastructure generally the floods would have been greater not lesser than what actually occurred.

The above is my own view and does not necessarily reflect any official opinion on the matter.

But for what it's worth, the politics are such that Hydro will probably cop the blame if anything bad happens really. Someone's dog started barking, their car broke down, locked their keys in the car, too cold, too hot, too wet, too dry, power's too expensive, power's too cheap. Might as well blame Hydro for all of it really.

For those of us who know the real truth behind the whole energy saga over the past 6 months and with an understanding of Tasmanian politics, well let's just say there's a dangerous game being played here in terms of who gets the blame.

Well said Sir :xyxthumbs
 
But for what it's worth, the politics are such that Hydro will probably cop the blame if anything bad happens really. Someone's dog started barking, their car broke down, locked their keys in the car, too cold, too hot, too wet, too dry, power's too expensive, power's too cheap. Might as well blame Hydro for all of it really.

As Sir Humphrey once said "the first instinct of Ministers is to rat on their department".

Or words to that effect.
 
A couple of charts put the situation into perspective in terms of water flows.

Woods Lake: http://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/water-storage/Web_Lakes_WOODS.pdf

Arthurs Lake: http://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/water-storage/Web_Lakes_ARTHURS.pdf

Woods Lake is an irrigation storage, occasionally topped up with water released from Arthurs Lake if it runs low, and the rise in water level over a period of about 30 hours exceeds that of the whole of Winter 2015.

Arthurs Lake is primarily for power generation via pumping (in one direction only - that's diversion pumping not a pumped storage scheme) into Great Lake although some water is also released for irrigation purposes via the separate Midlands power station (aka Floods Creek PS). Minor amounts are occasionally released into the natural river channel which ends up in Woods Lake. It will take several months for the pumps to move the amount of water that came into Arthurs in the space of just over a day so that's a truly massive inflow in a very short period. :2twocents
 
A couple of charts put the situation into perspective in terms of water flows.

Woods Lake: http://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/water-storage/Web_Lakes_WOODS.pdf

Arthurs Lake: http://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/water-storage/Web_Lakes_ARTHURS.pdf

Woods Lake is an irrigation storage, occasionally topped up with water released from Arthurs Lake if it runs low, and the rise in water level over a period of about 30 hours exceeds that of the whole of Winter 2015.

Arthurs Lake is primarily for power generation via pumping (in one direction only - that's diversion pumping not a pumped storage scheme) into Great Lake although some water is also released for irrigation purposes via the separate Midlands power station (aka Floods Creek PS). Minor amounts are occasionally released into the natural river channel which ends up in Woods Lake. It will take several months for the pumps to move the amount of water that came into Arthurs in the space of just over a day so that's a truly massive inflow in a very short period. :2twocents

That is great news smurph, it looks as though hydro is going to be on the up and up this year, despite global warming. Magic :xyxthumbs
 
I think we must have upset someone.......

Just a couple of mm short of an all time record rainfall and there's cars floating around the Hobart CBD plus general chaos with roads closed, lots of schools and the university closed, even the casino is closed.

https://www.examiner.com.au/story/5394183/hobart-hit-by-extreme-weather-event-flooding/?cs=95

About 13,000 homes, mostly around Hobart, without power at the moment and most of them have been off since last night. There's no shortage of power as such, no problems with generation or transmission, but the distribution network has copped rather a lot of damage in some areas. Biggest problems with that are flooding of a substation in Hobart and various lines down in the suburbs etc.

More concerning though is I haven't heard what's happened to the homeless people camped at the Showgrounds? I doubt their tents would have survived last night's prolonged and intense rain / wind / thunder storm. Hope they're OK..... :2twocents
 
I think we must have upset someone.......

Just a couple of mm short of an all time record rainfall and there's cars floating around the Hobart CBD plus general chaos with roads closed, lots of schools and the university closed, even the casino is closed.

https://www.examiner.com.au/story/5394183/hobart-hit-by-extreme-weather-event-flooding/?cs=95

About 13,000 homes, mostly around Hobart, without power at the moment and most of them have been off since last night. There's no shortage of power as such, no problems with generation or transmission, but the distribution network has copped rather a lot of damage in some areas. Biggest problems with that are flooding of a substation in Hobart and various lines down in the suburbs etc.

More concerning though is I haven't heard what's happened to the homeless people camped at the Showgrounds? I doubt their tents would have survived last night's prolonged and intense rain / wind / thunder storm. Hope they're OK..... :2twocents
More info in this than the news report. Perhaps you should send it to them?
 
Some of it's from another news report that's behind a paywall and some's from my own sources and observation. :)
 
About 13,000 homes, mostly around Hobart, without power at the moment and most of them have been off since last night. There's no shortage of power as such, no problems with generation or transmission, but the distribution network has copped rather a lot of damage in some areas. Biggest problems with that are flooding of a substation in Hobart and various lines down in the suburbs etc.

No, you are wrong Smurf, it's all the fault of renewable energy !!!
 
and here we are in the middle of winter....

Liawenee, inland Tassie and in the central Highlands on the western side of Great Lake and at an altitude of 1,065 m (3,494 ft) asl, set a new record low temperature for the third consecutive day, with -13.5°C recorded just before 5am on Thursday.

The temperature, now the coldest ever recorded in the area in July, follows on from -12.9°C yesterday and -10.8°C the day before.

At -13.5°C, this is the lowest temperature recorded in Australia this year, surpassing the -13°C set earlier in the week at Thredbo Village in New South Wales.

Other parts of Tasmania also dropped into the negatives overnight, with the Bureau of Meteorology reporting temperatures in Cressy at -5.5°C, Fingal at -4.4°C and Launceston Airport at -3.7°C.

Brooke Pagel from the BOM said the cool temperatures and frosty mornings are being caused by a “very cold and dry air mass”.
 
Population 2. One's the local cop, the other works for the Inland Fisheries Service. At least that used to be the case.

Only reason it has any significance at all is the canal from Lake Augusta to Great Lake built during the period 1920 - 22 and the later dam to raise the storage capacity of Lake Augusta in 1953.

I hear Lake Augusta has frozen over, it's a sheet of ice apparently, and Little Pine Lagoon also frozen over.

Also a record Australian high pressure recorded at Sheffield (NW Tas): https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-04/australias-highest-air-pressure-recorded-weather/104055462
 
I hear Lake Augusta has frozen over, it's a sheet of ice apparently, and Little Pine Lagoon also frozen over.
not much warmer in the Midlands, this snap taken during recent cold snap
Screenshot_20240709-142200_Chrome.jpg
 
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