Wild winds and big surf batter the Central Coast
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ABC News
7 hours ago
- ABC News
Giant hail threat increases for Australian cities as climate warms
The frequency of "giant" hail and the number of hail days in a season could increase substantially for multiple Australian cities as the climate warms, a new study has found. The University of New South Wales study modelled the severity of hailstorms for the current and future climate across Australia's most hail-prone major cities, including Brisbane, the Sydney/Canberra area, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. It is one of the first studies to simulate how hailstorm frequency and severity — one of the most costly natural perils in Australia — may change in the future. It also looked at the WA goldfields town of Kalgoorlie, which the researchers said was a hotspot for hail. The study found that while the overall frequency of hailstorms only increased for a few cities, the chances of "giant hail" would become more frequent by the end of the century for Melbourne, Perth, Kalgoorlie, Sydney and Canberra. The "future" scenario assumes a warming of about 2.8 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in 2080–2100, which the researchers say is within the range of projections for our current emissions pathway. In Melbourne, the likelihood of 10cm hailstones hitting the city would increase from once every 20 years to once every three years, according to the study's findings. "In Melbourne, we saw that in the historical simulations, you might expect a 10cm hailstone, so that's like a pretty big hailstone, to occur once every 20 years in those simulations," the author of the research paper, Dr Tim Raupach, said. "But in the future scenario, that time reduces to every three years. Kalgoorlie saw similarly big increases in the frequency of giant hail — with 10cm hail recurring every six years in the future, compared to 18 years now. In Sydney and Canberra, giant hail already has a risk of happening once every three years, on average, but this goes to once every two years in the future scenario. In Perth, the chance of seeing giant hail with a diameter of 5cm increased from 14 per cent in any given year to 21 per cent, but the trends for 10cm hail were less clear. Giant hail has been shown to cause substantial damage to cities in the past, with some of Australia's most expensive insurance disasters coming from hailstorms. The Bureau of Meteorology issues warnings when hail is over 2cm in size. The simulations also predict the overall frequency of hailstorms will increase by nearly 30 per cent in Sydney and Canberra and 15 per cent in Brisbane — two areas already very prone to hail. "So those east coast cities — we saw increases in the frequency in the future simulations but in the other places we looked at, the changes were not significant, so no big changes there," Dr Raupach said. In Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney and Canberra, it's not just how often the hailstorms and large hail come around that is increasing. The stones are also predicted to get bigger in general, with the biggest stones in any given storm in Melbourne predicted to increase by nearly a centimetre in diameter on average, according to the study. Hail is one of the most costly natural disasters, responsible for more than 20 per cent of insurance losses in Australia from 1967 to 2023. This includes the 1999 Sydney Hailstorm — Australia's most expensive natural disaster in insurance history — which saw an "avalanche" of cricket ball-sized hailstones blasting through roofs, windows and cars. The freak storm caused $1.7 billion in insured losses at the time, estimated at $8.85 billion if it were to happen today. Perth residents also remember the 2010 hailstorm, which left the city in tatters and led to over $1 billion in insurance claims. There are still cars on the road today bearing golf-ball-sized dents. Dr Raupach said Australia's booming rooftop solar installations could make our cities and towns even more vulnerable to cost blow-outs now. "Hail can damage solar panels. We've seen it happen — in Brisbane in 2020 and in the US as well," he said. Given the hefty price tag of these events, Dr Raupach said it was something Australia needed to consider, noting hail was not in the building regulations. "This was a study looking at the end of the century," he said. "If climate change is making hailstones larger, then first of all, we should reduce emissions so that we kind of tamp down the effects of climate change. Despite the study's findings, Dr Raupach described the impact of climate change on hail as still being "uncertain", noting this was only one study. He said further studies were also needed on wind speeds, which could act to make the damage of hailstorms far worse by blowing the stones sideways into windows. One of the main reasons for hail getting larger is the warming of the atmosphere, according to Dr Raupach. With every degree the atmosphere warms, it can hold 7 per cent more moisture. This extra moisture acts as "fuel" for a storm when the right weather system comes along, meaning it has the potential to be more powerful and create larger hail. But Dr Raupach said other "dynamical" parts of weather made the situation more complicated from place to place. "The ingredients you need for a hailstorm [are] instability in the atmosphere and you need the wind to be changing with height, that's called wind shear, and you need plenty of moisture," he said. "Let's take Brisbane as an example. There, we see an increase in the instability but we see a decrease in the wind shear, and that seems to have an offsetting effect … that might explain why we're not seeing these changes in hailstone size in Brisbane. "But in Melbourne, for example, we're seeing increases in both of those ingredients, and so it makes sense that we're seeing changes in the hail size there." Adelaide did not show any significant trends in either frequency or hail size. Hobart and Darwin were not included in the study because they "don't get hail as often", according Dr Raupach.
ABC News
10 hours ago
- ABC News
Beekeepers' convoy of WA hives to help South Australia's almond growers
About 600 West Australian beehives are being loaded on trucks ready to head to South Australia to assist almond growers facing drought and a critical shortage of bees. The Bee Industry Council of Western Australia decided to set up the convoy after being approached for help to keep almond growers across the border in production. Almond trees depend heavily on honey bees for pollination, and without enough hives during their brief blooming period, the growers risk substantial yield losses. The hives were formally purchased by SA growers keen to boost local bee populations, with the new convoy set to follow 80 truckloads of WA hay recently sent across the border. Bee Industry Council WA director Brendon Fewster said producers in Western Australia were quick to come to the rescue. As well as being in drought, SA producers have been cut off from their usual east coast suppliers who are dealing with varroa mite outbreaks. "Seasonal conditions have been the main factor for them, but almond pollination usually requires bees coming in from the east coast, which, at the moment, there [are strict measures] in place because of varroa mite," Mr Fewster said. Beekeepers from across WA have delivered the hives to a property near Bindoon, 75 kilometres north of Perth. Ensuring full hives are ready for pollination can take months of careful preparation. He said the bees were expected to be transported via road train later this week, but sending bees across the Nullarbor came with its challenges. "The thing with bees is you can't leave them on the truck for very long. You want to get them on and off there as quickly as you can," he said. "They need around 2,000 beehives, but we are transporting around 600, so hopefully this will get some bees into their orchards." Mr Fewster said once the almond pollination season was over in South Australia, bees could not be returned west due to strict biosecurity protocols. Mr Fewster, a longtime beekeeper from the Gingin area, said the most recent season had also been one of the most challenging he could recall in Western Australia. "We've had a lot of long, dry summers. The trees and bush are struggling," he said. But despite the challenges, the director of the council did not rule out the cross-border collaboration becoming ongoing. "We've been in contact with the almond growers over there, and it looks like this could become something that WA supports ongoing," Mr Fewster said. "We've done it in such short notice, with only with about 10 days notice for our beekeepers. "Next time, if we can organise ourselves earlier, I'm sure we could do it again with more bees going into South Australia."
ABC News
13 hours ago
- ABC News
Double-digit rainfall raises farmers' hopes of bumper harvest in southern WA
Farmers in and around Esperance, 700 kilometres south-east of Perth, could be the biggest beneficiaries of cold fronts that have brought double and triple-digit rainfall to parts of southern Western Australia over the past week. At his Munglinup farm, Kieran Barrett was one of a number of growers calling in air support to fertilise his crops after the downpour. "We are doing a bit of urea spreading on some wheat. We normally do it ourselves, but yeah, little bit damp at the minute," Mr Barrett told the ABC as he raced to refill the aircraft in between showers. With farm roads washed out and creeks running, getting onto the paddock to spray or spread fertiliser without getting bogged has been a significant challenge. "We've had about 70 millimetres over the last six days," Mr Barrett said. "We are going to be about a fortnight before we can get back on the paddock." The grain farmer said the season had been "pretty good", with the latest front moving along the south coast late on Monday. "We've had some good early rains in April and that probably carried us through the dry May," Mr Barrett said. "That allowed us to keep seeding in that May timing and get everything out of the ground when we needed to. Aircraft from South East Air Ag have been spraying almost every day for the past month. Owner Scott Mackie said the phone had not stopped ringing during July. "We normally do a bit of urea every year, but this year there's more of the demand because it's wet," he said. Mr Mackie said one of his neighbours had recorded his wettest July in almost 25 years. While another grain farmer, a little bit further along the coast in Young River, reported 96mm in a week. Across the south west, rainfall figures for June and July are a reminder of how winters used to be. Cape Naturaliste recorded 458mm while Albany saw 289mm and Bickley, in the Perth Hills, reported 445mm. "They are good falls, about what we would expect in winter, in some cases a little bit more than what we would get in winter," climatologist David Wilson said. The rain is yet to break any widespread records, with Ludlow, 230km south of Perth, setting a new mark for single-day winter rainfall, with 170.8mm on July 3. Despite three strong cold fronts moving through the south west land division in the past week, there are still areas in the eastern Wheatbelt that need more rain. "At Merredin, we are going to see slightly drier than average for August but close to median conditions for September," Dr Wilson said. At Lake Grace and Narambeen, the bureau has predicted drier than average conditions and around median conditions for September.
