Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) Outlook for next three months - Part 1

 

There is weather and there is climate.

While we grumble about cold weather and rain this winter, global warming is still inexorably changing Australia's climate as the continent and the oceans around it grow warmer and seasonal rainfalls become more erratic.

La Niña only dissipated in early March 2023 and El Niño was present in the Northern Hemisphere by early June and may be across the Southern Hemisphere before September - the ocean around the Galapagos Islands just south of the Equator is already warming to 20 degrees. It is beginning to appear as if the near average weather pattern period between these two extremes in the global ENSO cycle is beginning to contract.

This is the long range forecast for the next three months for Australia.

Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Climate outlooks—weeks, months and seasons:

Long-range forecast overview

Issued: 15 June 2023

• For July to September, below median rainfall is likely to very likely (60% to greater than 80% chance) for much of the eastern two-thirds of Australia and south-west WA.

• July to September maximum temperatures are likely to very likely warmer than median (60% to greater than 80% chance) for almost all of Australia.

• Above median July to September minimum temperatures likely to very likely (60% to greater than 80% chance) for most of Australia.

• This forecast is influenced by a number of factors, including warming in the tropical Pacific Ocean beyond El Niño thresholds, the potential development of a positive Indian Ocean Dipole, and record warm oceans globally.

Currently Australia’s ENSO Outlook shows El Niño ALERT, which indicates a 70% chance of El Niño forming this year. This equates to roughly three times the normal chance of an El Niño forming.

Rainfall - Totals that have a 75% chance of occurring for July to September

Max temperature - The chance of above median max temperature for July to September

Australia: Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly Outlook – July to November 2023

U.S. NOAA Daily Global 5km Satellite Sea Surface Temperature, 17 July 2023

Click on images to enlarge

NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, June 2023: between Grafton and Maclean Hospitals another 40 nurses are needed to provide adequate staffing levels

 

Grafton Base Hospital is a Level 3/4 rural community hospital with an est. 68 bed inpatient capacity which provides acute medical, surgical, orthopaedic, paediatric, anaesthetic, geriatric, obstetric and maternity, intensive and critical care, renal, oncology, palliative care, emergency, some specialist outpatient services and day surgery facilities. Maclean District Hospital is a Level 3 rural community hospital with an est. <43 inpatient bed capacity, an inpatient Rehabilitation Unit and a Day Surgery Unit.

Clarence Valley Independent, 14 June 2023:

Between Grafton and Maclean Hospitals another 40 nurses are needed to provide adequate staffing levels say the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association as the Local Health District tries to fill 180 nursing vacancies across the region.

NSW Nurses and Midwives Association Clarence Valley branch secretary Thea Koval said without agency nursing staff being called in, who are paid significantly more than NSW Health nurses, Maclean and Grafton hospitals would struggle to operate.

“Without agency nursing staff our hospitals would not be able to be run with the nurses employed only by NSW Health,” she said.

“Without that external agency support we would be completely drowning, there just would not be enough staff.”

Ms Koval said both Grafton and Maclean hospitals are continuing to experience increasing numbers of patients presenting to the emergency department ED, which leads to increasing wait times until they are treated.

This combined with the lack of nursing staff, Ms Koval said is leading to a decline in patient care.

“We are constantly and have been for the last 10 years saying that the amount of staff we have is not enough to provide the care we are expected to our patients,” she said.

“That can range anywhere from not being able to provide a shower, so there’s patients going without showers on the wards, to people waiting excessive amounts of time in ED to be seen by a nurse, or once they’re seen by a nurse waiting for pain relief, waiting to be helped to the toilet or delays in getting antibiotics.”

Ms Koval said the frustrating lack of staff led to nurses striking four times last year.

“We raise the issue through to our managers, we try and raise it with the Ministry of Health and so far, nothing has changed,” she said.

“This new government has promised to introduce the ratio system, which they termed ‘safe staffing’ but that hasn’t happened yet.”

Ms Koval said the planned ratios are one nurse to three patients in ED, with a dedicated resuscitation nurse, a dedicated triage nurse and a dedicated team leader on all shifts.

“That would make a massive difference to Grafton and Maclean Hospitals, particularly on our night shifts when our staffing drops from seven nurses to three nurses, and more often than not these days the ED is full of patients,” she said.

As Queensland Health have implemented nurse to patient ratios, where nurses experience better conditions and earn $10 an hour more than in NSW, Ms Koval said a number of local nurses have left to work over the border.

As a result, the Northern NSW Local Health District has confirmed there are 180 full time equivalent nursing vacancies across the region.

“Grafton and Maclean hospitals have approximately 40 of those vacancies,” Ms Koval said.

“That is just to make it back up to what the government currently considers as reasonable staffing levels…and when this new ‘safe staffing’ comes in as promised, that level of vacancies will increase.”

Ms Koval said staff shortages extend to the number of local doctors, as two surgeons have recently left Grafton hospital without being replaced and locums are regularly called in to fill positions in Grafton and Maclean hospitals.

“It’s a very large expense (for locums) but it’s what you have to do otherwise you don’t have medical coverage,” she said……

Read the full article here.

The Great Koala National Park is no closer to becoming a reality than it was when Labor made a commitment to such a park in January 2015

 

IMAGE: Animal Justice Party NSW

"Of more than 458 000 hectares of Areas of Regional Koala Significance (ARKS) mapped in NSW, only 21% are inside a National Park.

"One of our most iconic species is being subjected to native forest logging and out of control land clearing, and the National Parks estate can't save it unless something big changes.

"Koalas now face extinction in our lifetimes without urgent action. Yet their habitat has virtually no protection from the logging and clearing that is driving this decline.”

[Nature Conservation Council (NCC) chief executive Jacqui Mumford, 28 February 2023]

This was NSW Labor eight years and five months ago….

AAP General News Wire, excerpt, 19 January 2015:

Labor has announced it will work with the Wilderness Society to help nature conservation in NSW.

The Great Koala National Park proposal would take in 315,000 hectares of hinterland forest between Macksville and Woolgoolga, north of Coffs Harbour, combining 176,000 hectares of state forest with 140,000 hectares of existing protected areas.

The park will provide a lifeline to the population of about 4500 koalas that live in the region……

This was NSW Labor in 2023 at Day 81 of its new term as state government – still no further ahead than the talking points of 2015, ignoring the fact that Koala numbers in New South Wales had fallen from est. 36,000 in 2016 to perhaps as few as 11,000 remaining in the wild by 2020 and, as a political party as deep in the pocket of Forestry NSW as the Liberal & National parties…..

Excerpt from letter to the Clerk of the NSW Legislative Assembly from Minister for Climate Change, Minister for Energy, Minister for the Environment, Minister for Heritage & Labor MLC Penny Sharpe. Click to enlarge

Cartoons of the Week

Mike Luckovich

 

Fiona Katsaukas

Quotes of the Week

“Google has announced that soon, when you search a question on its site, the first result displayed will be an AI-generated answer drawn from the open web. But many of the most trustworthy sources of information - academic journals, high-quality newspapers - are locked behind a paywall. There is a real chance the AI-powered search engines that will shape our lives will be biased toward misinformation or even falsehoods.”

[The Conversation, webpage footnote, excerpt retreived 11 June 2023]

“We’ve logged our state forests to exhaustion, so we’re now going into ‘plantations’ cutting old growth and remnant forest.”

[Dr Tim Cadman, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow with Law Futures Centre and Institute for Ethics, Governance and Law at Griffith University, writing in Griffith News, 5 June 2023]

Meme of the Week

HUMBUG

 

Bipartisan support for The Voice makes its presence felt in the Richmond Valley NSW

 

Byron Echo, 14 June 2023:

Showing their support for the ‘Yes’ vote were Alice and dozens of ‘Yes’ friends in Brunswick Heads. Photo Tree Faerie

The Richmond for Yes campaign kicked off this week, with a strong call for volunteers to help deliver a successful Voice referendum.

Bundjalung elder Charline Emzin-Boyd, who is leading the campaign locally, says, ‘People who want to be involved in this special moment in history can get in touch with us at Yes23’.

‘Volunteering is an opportunity to walk with us’, says Charline, ‘so people from different backgrounds and different politics can come together to make Australia a better place for everyone.’

The new campaign is based in the federal electorate of Richmond, which covers coastal towns from Tweed to Ballina, and west to Mullumbimby and Murwillumbah….

The Richmond electorate voted for the Labor Party platform - which included the Voice Referendum - at the 2022 federal general election, by re-electing sitting MP Justine Elliot for her seventh consecutive term as their representative in the Australian Parliament.

Other notable local supporters of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Voice to Parliament are former Liberal MLC Catherine Cusack and former Greens candidate for Richmond, Echo columnist Mandy Nolan & NSW Labor MLC for Lismore Janelle Saffin.

The YES 23 campaign has a website, https://yes23.com.au/.

That website allows everyone to keep track of what’s happening in the Northern Rivers region and elsewhere at:

https://action.yes23.com.au/events.

Information about the referendum question and what it means can also be found at:

https://voice.gov.au/.