Bushwalk Australia

I was planning to go for an overnighter in the Green Mountains in QLD, and looking at the weather forecast a few days out it said a thunderstorm and a bit of rain. Now, I've camped out in thunderstorms before and they don't worry me at all. I checked the weather again on Friday to verify, and read about softball sized hail, 130kph winds, and possible tornado systems... That was enough for me to err on the side of caution and abandon the walk.

Woke up early on Saturday to see if we could sneak in a quick hike before the storms, and managed to summit Mt Ngungun, and could see the storm system to the south and southwest. After seeing on the news what happened in the storm yesterday and what we got today I am glad we didn't decide to venture out for the overnighter.

I too was supposed to be out down in the Barney NP for the weekend but pulled out earlier in the week for medical reasons. I'm usually devastated to miss a trip but I've never been happier to not be hanging in my hammock These storms were nuts (not to mention a rather cranky one heading our way right now).

what would we do without weather forecasters?
forecasts seem to be more important than ever, its fact there's a greater frequency of extreme weather events than in past decades...
in nz theres been a few trips run by professional outdoors groups where failure to obtain an up to date forecast has ended in multiple deaths.
in one case, the weather was so bad the group were found encased in ice...
mate of mine had a lucky escape in strong winds when he was forced to crawl a long distance to get off the top of a mountain range.
theres no exucse now, forecasts are a lot bettter then they used to be decades ago, if you've got access to the internet you can get the information you need to make an effective decision about a trip...

I was suppose to be hiking the Gold Coast Great Walk, called it off due to unavailability of a camp site at Binna Burra for saturday, was going to Mt Barney instead, but when i heard the weather report, i reconsidered.

Well we've just had hail, horizontal rain, our pool filled in 10mins (we only just let water out earlier after last night/yesterday), a tree came down and...well here's the street

The water line was up at the fence but its subsided quickly. Crazy weekend. Hope those that ventured out are safe n sound.

wayno wrote:in nz theres been a few trips run by professional outdoors groups where failure to obtain an up to date forecast has ended in multiple deaths.
in one case, the weather was so bad the group were found encased in ice...

Yeah - reason I advocate to never skimp on a solid tent in these areas despite the weight penalty. Forecasts in places like Tassie and NZ can be very wrong at times - just the exposure to the ocean.

You only have to experience it once to not regret the weight penalty. If things get really bad holing up in a solid tent means you have a good chance of survival - even if other gear is suboptimal. Plenty of food and super warm sleeping bag will only get you so far if your tent is shredding in wind with pouring sleet and ice.

adequate tents are a small part of the issue, one of these trips, the weather was far to strong to possibly pitch a tent, they were stuck on the top of ruapehu pinned down by extreme winds
another case a group were killed in a flash flood.

Where i am staying at the Gold Coast at Carrara, it hardly rain, certainly no wind, in fact the weather has been beautiful, with a little rain at night and a few showers during the day, The Gold Coast hinterland I'm not so sure, looking at the radar over the last few days, looks like the hinterland got it pretty bad.

My brother and I were hoping to go climbing at Mt. Greville on Saturday. We got to the mouth of Waterfall Gorge before it started raining Continued hoping it would pass...it didn't. We didn't get much crazy wind at my place at Inala. The amount of thunder was amazing though. Our cats were crapping themselves.

I had seen the forecast for severe afternoon storms on Saturday afternoon, so I planned to go for a quick hour or two walk on Saturday morn...woke up and it was looking ominous already so decided not to go...storms rolled in soon after, just about when I would have been halfway through the walk! I haven't got away to the bush for a few weekends now...getting antsy here.

wayno wrote:adequate tents are a small part of the issue, one of these trips, the weather was far to strong to possibly pitch a tent, they were stuck on the top of ruapehu pinned down by extreme winds
another case a group were killed in a flash flood.

Wow - that must be at the extreme end of extreme weather.

Do you know of any reports / coroner documents etc on this event? - would be interested to look at (i always like to look at such events and see if there is anything that could have been done better). Anything you think they could have done better? (other than look up the forecast!).

Flash flood is a bit tough - they kill people here in North Queensland too.

I got to the first peak on Neglected Mtn on saturday...thats when I got 3g signal and realized the weather was only about 10km from me. Since it was only a bit of a reconn, I made the descent at that point, and was actually closing the gate at my car when the first drops fell. I felt pretty smug then.

Back in the 80's our family was nearly done in by the Turon River while camping between Sofala and Hill End. That thing floods with a vengeance.