Australian Weather - Floods

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addo
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Australian Weather - Floods

Post by addo »

Not sure if it's made the UK news much, but at present it's not easy to get from Sydney to Melbourne via inland routes. Many of the areas I like to haunt, are underwater or cut off.

There's at least one tale of a fellow setting his C5 to maximum driving height and carefully fording a flooded roadway. He said that many of the 4WD types weren't so game.
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Post by myglaren »

Brave man that - I would certainly think twice then wimp out now I have seen where the C5 air intake is, although I have done it in the past.

Worse here is it is on the nearside, where the water runs down the road edges/gutters

How long have you had rain there Adam, been very dry the past few years. Is there enough to revive the farmland and reservoirs?
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Post by KP »

I Sympathise Adam.

I live in doncaster so had to cope with very bad floods a few years back, and then i had a fiat coupe and when the second bout hit i had my v reg 1.9td xantia hatch :)

Full hieght, tuen the airbox thru 180' and the low intake then took air from the hieght of the bonnet edge :) great for fording upto about 2+ foot!! not sure i'd do it again but the TD survived other than the odd wheel bearing issue as they aren't sealed bearings on the Xantia :(
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Post by addo »

I'm in the camp who say our documented weather in these areas has been exceptionally wet for much of the record-keeping period. Sadly we (historically) made agricultural commitments and cemented our expectations on that circumstance.

Problems arise when all the water comes very quickly! :lol: Many of the soils are immature, shallow, clayey. They just don't cope well. Once rainfall has exceeded the amount required to fill gullies, creeks, runnels and the rest - it sheets over large, quite flat areas. To put some perspective on it, my place down south (2½ acres) has less than six inches of fall from the highest point to the lowest...

Not my place, but similar topography. You can see how fine and clay-rich the soil is, and how flat:

Image

Nearside suspensions cop a pounding here, too - for the reasons Steve outlines.
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