While all you folk in the northern hemisphere have been having what in Australia is considered a cooler than normal summer, we've been having some ...
Rain, unceasing non stop rain. Some areas have flooded 3 or 4 times in the past 18 months wiping out houses, industries, horticultural farms, livestock, roads, bridges and other infrastructure. One of my kitesurf customers has sold up his house on the east coast of Australia and moved over 4000km to the west coast, (only have to deal with annual bush fires there), because with so much rain, the ocean out the front of where he lives is full of debris, dead livestock and sewerage from the floods coming down a nearby river. Not to mention in many places on the coast the unusual and protracted wave action from big storm swells has taken away the beach, destroyed access infrastructure and threatened houses, surf clubs and other above and below ground infrastructure.
We have had an all time record of nearly 2m/2000mm/72inches of rainfall so far this year and no, we are nowhere near the tropics. Annual average rainfall is usually just 920mm/36inches. And it's still raining and the forecast is much more to come. Every road around here has moderate to severe damage and some of the main access roads in my region have been closed due to landslides for months at a time.
Everyone will pay as the cost of these extreme weather events has caused massive increases in insurance premiums. That's if you can get insurance if you live in an area that's deemed to be fire or flood prone. Contractors like myself who run earthmoving machinery have only had three or four weeks over the past six months where you could work. That means expensive machinery parked up doing nothing. Thousands of cars have been destroyed in the floods creating a shortage of new and secondhand vehicles which has meant a 4 year old car can be sold for more than it was purchased for.
Food costs are through the roof as there has been a livestock shortage created by the extreme weather and fruit and vegetable crops have been washed away on our most fertile land. In a number of places virtually every crop planted over the past 18 months has been destroyed by flooding leading to some farmers unable to afford to continue.
Even broadacre farmers out west of here where it's usually drier have had to replant in places, as waterlogged fields have killed wheat and canola crops. That's if they can get machinery on the fields without bogging. Some have resorted to spreading seed by plane or helicopter as the price of grains is too good to miss a crop.
The climate is changing way too fast and the impact on our economy and ecology is shocking