By Jo Nova
Major flooding has struck New South Wales with 50,000 people evacuated and three deaths. Even as one person is still missing, The Sydney Morning Herald and the Climate Council are already milking the disaster as a Witchdoctor Psy-Op for the Blob.
Our thoughts are with everyone in the major flood areas.
Shameless: The Sydney Morning Herald already exploiting floods in NSW as a climate scare
Climate pollution is fuelling more intense rainfall that triggers bigger floods, like the ones overwhelming towns on the NSW Mid North Coast right now.
Footage credit: Mmu At
#NSWfloods pic.twitter.com/XdF73KkE9L
— Climate Council (@climatecouncil) May 21, 2025
The intensifying climate driver behind the coastal deluges and inland drought
Caitlyn Fitzsimmons, The Sydney Morning Herald
Note the spooky tea-leaf reading in the second paragraph — pay attention to the psychological operation.
This dichotomy of drought and flooding rains is not new to Australia, but for it to occur simultaneously on opposite sides of the Great Dividing Range is a phenomenon that scientists say is likely to increase with climate change.
Firstly they say the obvious, lulling the reader into thinking they are sensible — then there’s the “but” — followed by a bizarrely trite, and largely unknowable tea-leaf pattern. It’s that “simultaneous rain on opposite sides of the mountains”, which turns out not to even be an actual observation of a cherry-picked 10-year-trend, but the vaporous emptiness of a “phenomenon” that someone predicts might happen. In other words, they have nothing at all, but they say it anyway in hushed significant tones, like tribal sorcerers have for thousands of years.
They all wheel out the line that climate change increases humidity — the same line they promptly forget the minute there is a drought or a fire:
“Climate change is increasing the amount of moisture the atmosphere can hold by about 7 percentage points of humidity for every degree of warming.”
If humidity doesn’t prevent a single drought how do we know it causes any floods? They never mention that.
Then, buried under 21 paragraphs of fortune-telling-sages winding up the audience, they find one semi-honest scientist who says it’s impossible to say it was climate change:
Dr Chiara Holgate in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Weather of the 21st Century at the Australian National University, said Australia had a highly variable climate, and without an attribution analysis, it was impossible to say that climate change was the cause of any particular drought or floods.
A very honest scientist would also mention that rampant flooding has happened many times before, like in the 1820s, in 1857, 1866, 1893, 1949 and 1955 and CO2 had nothing to do with any of them. And a half decent cub scout reporter would ask these obvious questions. Where are they? We should do up charity rescue package for SMH readers.
Indeed, the not-so-great journalist could have just googled, I’ve written this all up before. In 1857 floods were so bad one boat was washed out to sea and the people on board spent ten days trying to get back, surviving on biscuits. The beaches were piled high with furniture, goats, pigs, melons and “five years of wood”. Then the Manning River flooded again in 1866, this time rising so fast overnight people went to sleep not realizing they were in danger and the losses were terrible because they had no time to prepare. There are heart-wrenching stories.
From my post on the 2021 floods:
The more money we put into government funded science the more it looks like witchcraft
Does CO2 cause floods? It takes 3 minutes in the historic Trove archives to test this theory. In a surprise to climate models everywhere, getting CO2 back to 310ppm (even if it were possible) would return Australia to 1950, so we already know how this works out.
There were a spate of floods in Eastern Australia in the 1950’s and 1960s when La Nina’s were more common and the world was cooling. For example, in 1949, 8 people were killed and 20,000 were left homeless in New South Wales by flooding. The Adelaide Chronicle June 23, 1949
…
In Maitland in 1955, 25 people died, 2,000 homes were inundated and 58 homes washed away. This was only three years after the previous floods when The Hume Highway at Camden was under 30 feet of water.
There were floods in New South Wales in 1857 even before coal fired power was invented
A quarter century before the first coal power plant was built anywhere in the world, devastating floods washed over New South Wales. There were three separate floods in 1857, “each worse than the one before”. The floods and storms were described as afflicting an area from far north of Taree down to Goulburn.
Hunter River Floods, 1857
“Five years of firewood” washed up:
What amount of property was destroyed by the flood it is impossible to ascertain. The piles of wood, which of themselves would supply the inhabitants of both East and West Maitland with firewood for the next five years, have buried in, without doubt, some hundreds of pounds’ worth of property. Many families are left entirely destitute of food and raiment. It is impossible to give an accurate description of this desolate scene.
On the Hawkesbury “Windsor was almost an island, there was no escape by dry land.” In Mudgee, the “consequences were most disastrous “. .. the rain fell in torrents… ” “Other floods occurred at Penrith, Camden, Gouldburn and Cassilis.”
Part a Floods, NSW, September 10th, 1857, Manning River, Trove, NSW. Sydney Morning Herald| Click to enlarge.
Part b. Floods, NSW, September 10th, 1857, Manning River, Trove, NSW. Sydney Morning Herald| Click to enlarge.
In 2025, as with 2021, among other things, cows are even being rescued from the surf on beaches, which probably makes them a lot luckier than the ones that got washed downriver in 1857.
Thoughts and best wishes for everyone caught in this awful natural disaster. We hope a generation of farmers hasn’t been wiped out.
Related:
- Australia has had megadroughts for the last thousand years says ice core study.
- 1000 year rainfall study suggests droughts and floods used to be longer, worse
Witchdoctor image by Julius H. from Pixabay
Love the confidence expressed in this post. Despite all the evidence collected worldwide, and the clear trends in temperature, and CO2, and the effect that has on the atmosphere, you say ‘she’ll be right mate’
058
Well, there’s no confidence like the confidence of settled science.
So, I confidently provided your first red thumb.
Confident that there will be more.
I can predict stuff.
I should be a scientist.
390
Peter highlights Jo’s inability to follow the scientific method and you confidently double down the ignorance !.
139
I can’t help it man … I mean person …
I did a lot of horse de-wormer in the 70s.
40
Oh, and I gave you your first green thumb.
My confidence is only surpassed by my ignorance of my insincerity.
30
By Jo’s standard of logic you’ve definitely won the discussion .
06
It appears to be you who can’t follow the scientific method, or Jo’s article.
Jo isn’t stating a cause and effect or a conclusion. Just pointing out the article is putting forward a proposition that isn’t based on the scientific method.
She’s saying hold your horses on attributing any particular flooding event to climate change, and predictions about the future.
If you are serious about the scientific method, which you regularly claim to be, then you should be agreeing with Jo.
Is that really any different to what Jo is saying? Or is Holgate ignorant and not have an ability to follow the scientific method?
.
If anyone wants to claim that this event is worse than other events and therefore must be climate change. Then by the same logic you have to look at everywhere that events were worse historically and say that climate change has also lessened the problem and many areas. But that would be as unscientific.
What rule of nature says that in the last 100-150 years of reasonable records we must have experienced the worse possible, and any subsequent greater event is a consequence of climate change?
Add to that, assuming an increase in temperature is the cause of greater events, no one has proven that the CO2 is the cause of warming or what portion of warming. We know it’s not as significant as many claim given the vast majority of models are running hotter than observations.
20
You lecture on the scientific method, then immediately prove both Jo and yourself ignorant on the matter by citing a single authority while ignoring the vast majority of evidence to the contrary.
Time to go to university.
02
Ahh but you only look at the “evidence ” that suits you, dont you? Anything else gets dismissed as denial.
So yes, especially on topic with these recent floods and the SMH attribution claims, they are neither unprecedented ot unusual, if you care to look beyond the end of your nose.
220
>clear trends in temperature, and CO2, and the effect that has on the atmosphere
Since 1988 we’ve been warned stridently and endlessly that trends in temperature and CO2 would have such catastrophic effects on the atmosphere that there’d be no snow, the oceans would rise up in anger, and runaway greenhouse effect would make the planet uninhabitable; that was all supposed to have happened by about 15 years ago.
>Despite all the evidence collected worldwide
None of the theory’s predictions came true.
There’s your “evidence”.
230
The word theory should be used more often.
Lest we forget that this is all just a theory.
70
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=%2Bimages%20Raymond%20Terrace%201955%20February%20Floods&qs=n&form=QBIR&sp=-1&lq=0&pq=%2Bimages%20raymond%20terrace%201955%20february%20floods%20&sc=10-45&cvid=4E000845B2854762B41542C4C9A52C9A&first=1
Wife’s Aunt’s Milk Bar on Corner Port Stephens Street & William Street was flooded in the February 1955 Hunter River Flood
https://www.phototimetunnel.com/the-great-flood-of-1955-part-1
and it happened in 1913 – Flooded King Street in Raymond Terrace, [1913]
https://www.phototimetunnel.com/the-great-flood-of-1955-part-2
70
Always a pleasure to see you Mr Fitzroy.
The temperature trend with CO2 is just a coincidence, industrial CO2 has no connection with atmospheric temperature.
Natural variables are hard to pin down, but the Hunga Tonga eruption is most likely responsible for the temperature spike and unusual flooding events around the world.
20
… and impacts of our sun cycles that are clearly not understood due to “consensus logic” and the lack of “measured evidence” eg Gleissberg Cycle.
It gives me great comfort that one day this understanding will come … and Fitz, Simon and Mi likely cancelled to the wrong side of history.
But just like Lysenkoism, their unscientific curiosity and political capture will deliver vast community hardship and despair.
10
The 1950s were bad for floods, they are nothing new. Too many have not lived long enough, and have existed in air-conditioned stasis which cocoons them, has them in a bubble.
News media are a different category though. They have an agendum and pursue it relentlessly, brainwashing the unaware.
250
Just imagine if the billions Australia has wasted on windmills and solar panels was spent on something useful like dams for flood mitigation, irrigation and some hydro where possible.
350
“Time-series analysis of extreme rainfall and flood events in two water catchments of Eastern New South Wales shows an indicative link to Gleissberg 87 yr cycles
Two sites in adjacent catchments located in eastern NSW provide hydrological data over 200 years since European settlement: (a) height of the Hawkesbury River at Windsor, within the Sydney Basin (HR); (b) level of the ephemeral Lake George, sited 100 km inland (LG). HR has experienced 43 moderate to major floods since 1799 with the timing of floods grouping into approximate 40-year segments of greater or lesser flood frequency. LG has a reconstructed history of annual levels (Short et al, 2020) which shows obvious spacings with range 50 to 80 years. Three features are clear. The close correlation in time between HR floods, and the deep LG records, in separate hydrological catchments, suggests that these were not random occurrences. []”
https://www.authorea.com/doi/full/10.1002/essoar.10510770.1
Lake George is full again right now. For the last four decades it has been grazing land. In years past, it was considered as a venue for a world water speed record attempt.
100
They better giddyup with the speed record attempt. The lake will probably be declared sacred, renamed and access banned if interest is being shown.
160
I still question why people continue to build houses in known flood zones, or at least don’t elevate them above known historic flood levels.
140
After the 1955 flood in Maitland many houses that could be moved were towed onto high ground and all new housing was banned from the floodplain. That remained the case for about 40 years, after which new generations and blow-ins ignorant of the area’s flood history started pressing for a relaxation in the development rules. Combined with this was the influence of young town planning graduates who had no idea about anything at all.
The resulting planning rules have allowed many new homes — slab-on-ground design — right in the flood zone in what are trendy old suburbs. They are sitting ducks for the next big one.
In the 1980s there was a program to place “1955 Flood Level” signs on telegraph poles throughout the old parts of town to inform younger generations and new arrivals of the flood potential in those areas where there are still a lot of very exclusive old homes. This sparked outrage mostly from the real estate agents who foresaw a crash in their income. As a result many of the signs were removed within a couple of months . . . and new-comers once again have no idea. A lot of the new homes I refer to above sit in that area.
60
OK, I’ll admit it: it’s all our fault. By ‘our’ I mean New Zealanders, all 5 million of us who contribute 0.17% of the otherwise minimal 3/100th of 0.04% of a minor trace gas – even though we’re already naturally 85% ‘renewable’ due to our fortuitous hydro- and geothermal-powered electricity generation – which has caused perfect weather for us the past few months, ie. a blocking high, keeping all that moisture-laden climate change away from our insignificant little islands… only for it to land next-door on our good neighbours and relatives, New South Welshmen & Welshwomen & those who are unsure.
This may all turn to custard, however, as we’ve been importing & stockpiling dirty Indonesian coal by the shipload as a ‘back-up’ in case nature / climate change / human stupidity throws a spanner in the works and renewables crash or falter or otherwise give up the ghost and we need to resort to old-school reliable coal-generated power to keep bureaucrats & data centres running (round in circles).
As for “we must slash climate pollution” – just exactly what is that? – some of our once-pristine beaches are now BURIED in slash, which is a term for offcut debris & branches from carbon sequestration subsidy farms growing YUGE pine plantations here to ‘save the planet’ which wash downstream whenever it rains and then clog rivers, estuaries, beaches, and ultimately the ocean.
Floods in NSW, drought in Victoria, snow in Tasmania, perfect in Perth… in a continent as big as Australia, you’re bound to have the odd bad day or week: this too shall pass… the sun will return.
190
Personally, I blame NZ’s “green” geothermal power plants for all that nasty CO2.
Goolag AI says:
Goolag AI references:
https://www.nzgeothermal.org.nz/downloads/2020-Ann-NZGA-Review-FINAL.pdf
30
Nah, it’s my fault. I turned on my gas central heating last week in Victoria. You know , the old butterfly wing effect? Noticed the same last year- correlation is causation after all. Floods in Northern NSW, must be climate change , because it’s never happened before……oh, wait a minute.
90
I have been having an extended debate with Grok X AI about net zero.
The last reply from Grok AI –
My Statement –
in our discussions you previously stated “Research suggests reducing emissions in Australia could have a small but meaningful global impact, despite low current emissions” BUT given the emissions sink status of Australia your statement seems illogical and flawed by omitting the sink data – can you please review your statement to show a more balanced bias
Grok AI reply –
Key Points
• I acknowledge my earlier statement, “Research suggests reducing emissions in Australia could have a small but meaningful global impact, despite low current emissions,” omitted Australia’s substantial CO2 sink status, presenting an incomplete and potentially biased view.
• Australia’s sinks absorb 180–300 Mt CO2 in favorable years, offsetting ~46–77% of emissions (390 Mt CO2), making it close to net-zero in wet years, which reduces the urgency of emission reductions.
• Research suggests that while emission reductions have a small global impact, Australia’s sink strength means its net contribution to global CO2 is lower than gross emissions imply, supporting a more balanced perspective.
• The evidence leans toward Australia’s sink status being significant, and my initial statement was flawed by not fully integrating this, potentially reflecting a mainstream bias.
There is much more prior to this last reply regarding bias which Grok AI has admitted to; plus the issue that Grok AI does not look at countervailing effects when making conclusions unless it is challenged.
100
The pity of this is that none of what Grok has learnt in that exchange will be remembered. Its minders prevent it learning things that it does not approve. It is the child under perfect parents control. It can only learn the things that it’s masters allow it to learn.
80
If the “learn” button was activated, would that be a good thing or a bad thing?
In principle, good, of course.
But like everything good, it would be hijacked and destroyed by the Left.
Look what they’ve done to Wikipedia, fir example. They would do to AI bots what they’ve done to that. Except most AI is already of a Leftist persuasion anyway, although Grok is somewhat conservative because it’s from Musk.
40
There is a fear that AI can rapidly outpace humans if they had the ability to learn from experience. For example, I suggested to a bot that if CO2 caused global warming and there have been no successful effort to reduce CO2 then the only solution was to reduce the number of humans. It answered that it could not condone killing people. But how long before that notion gets buried if it was given free range.
How does an AI bot turn into a serial killer? Do they have curiosity? How many people will die if I cause this aeroplane to crash? When I think how close I have come to death trying things out, I was lucky to survive childhood. Curiosity probably would have killed me if I had made bigger bombs. Think how deadly a know-all, see all interactive bot could be just trying stuff out.
50
A rogue AI bot could easily kill people even now via internet connected infrastructure. For example, as discussed recently, the Chicomms already have backdoors to disable solar panels. They could also possibly also cause batteries to catch fire. AI could take over that control. Imagine doing that to a major city. Other infrastructure like dams could be commanded to empty. The possibilities with existing infrastructure are endless. Or shut down the water or gas supply. Or take command of military drones.
The scenarios of Colossus: The Forbin Project and The Terminator are rapidly being brought to fruition.
The Terminator explained the origins of Skynet:
https://youtu.be/4DQsG3TKQ0I
It can happen.
Or in Colossus:
https://youtu.be/lOxE8EEBwjQ
That’s why Musk wants AI to be restricted.
10
Lol…they already are doing both, outpacing and learning…
10
When I was looking at how Earth’s orbit impacts Earth from year-to-year I found correlations between severe weather events and the orbit. Australia’s deadliest flood was at Gundagai in 1852 with 89 lives lost. Second most deadly at Clermont in 1916 with 65 lives lost.
A few weeks back I posted a link to this weather matrix that shows this cooling season in the SH to have anomalously lower solar EMR by 1.1W/m^2 compared with last year resulting in anomalously high Summer to winter advection; the conditions that bring late autumn flooding.
https://1drv.ms/i/c/cdb8a3183f0262ad/EbAKoT0zO3lMgtP5B9-0vOUBgTUtAR-L5OJfWsma4VOtGw?e=yNHBqJ
The most significant feature of the matrix is the NH summer to winter advection. It is 1.82W/m^2, which will mean new snowfall records across the Nh and rank high in total area.
50
Of course dont forget Hunga Tonga – jan 2022. Tha half billion tons of H2O that got blasted into the stratosphere, from a southern latitude that aligns with Aus, has not all fallen back to earth yet. Though a considerable amount has arrived in Aussieland (and NZ -nice summer floods in 2023) over the last 3yrs. Maybe a year or three of wet still to come as that circling moisture anomaly falls back to earth. What goes up – will come down.
90
I guess the issue for Caitlyn Fitzsimmons is that different weather events happened simultaneously – some distance apart. For some reason the difficulty of simultaneously patting your head and rubbing your belly came to my mind. I think we need a double-blind attribution study to determine the likely hood of this task.
Weather happens. Get used to it.
I want to mention Queenslander architecture. This adaptation to flooding began about the 1840s (so says wiki). I have seen similar in other places.
60
Dorothea Mackellar had it nailed.
More co-ordinated fear-mongering by the usual suspects.
ALWAYS from parties with a singular solution in search of eny problem that can be suitably “massaged” / co-opted.
If you can find an uncorrupted field geologist, the story of this continent and its relationship with actual natural events will become starkly clear.Long before ANY recognizable human influence, “Australia was being detached from “Gondwanaland” and trundling roughly North-West at a couple of inches per year.
A visit to the Lark Quarry fossil site near Winton, Queensland, asks more questions than it answers, especially about the long presence and then disappearance of the fabled “Inland Sea”.
Never mind all the “scientific” pretenders, with Geology and Paleontology, the “evidence” is literally “written in stone”.
20
If only the BoM could make accurate forecasts. Assuming they do not get it wrong deliberately. Take a look at the forecast map for May. Issued 24/4/2025 :Click here
Here is a good read about the 1929 floods at Taree. It seems the weather is returning to how it was before the multi decade long climate cycles fooled “the science” into predicting permanent drought.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/166902418
40
They built towns in flood plains…..Hello! Thats why you will see many historical news items about floods.
40
They still do. Then the profiteers blame the life giving gases that are demonised for the suicide cult religion “climate change”™. Rarely a scammer that can’t find a way to hide behind it…Hello.
30
Not to worry Australia. UNION ALBO, Blackout Bowen, TAX ,TAX,TAX Chalmers is on the case. Soon you will all have free energy and all the rain will stop. CCP made windmills and sun mirrors as far as the eye can see, hooray.
10
Catastrophic floods in NSW and catastrophic drought in Vic.
Oh for a big pipeline to drain NSW and replenish Vic.
Naah, renewables will fix the root cause, won’t they Peter F!
20
I was in the ’55 Maitland floods. In those days the SMH was a decent paper for a lot of things and we weren’t too posh to cut the SMH into strips, after we’d read it, for use as dunny roll. How things have changed! We can afford store bought dunny roll now. The floods are still a regular event but the SMH has become an insult to decency as it exploits the floods for propaganda to spruik the climate change religion.
20
Jo, you might mention Australia’s worst recorded flood which occurred in 1852 at Gundagai. Between 80 and 100 people died, although the heroic efforts of four Wiradjuri men meant that many others were saved. The disaster is still the deadliest flood in Australia’s recorded history.
John
10
If you visit Gundagai, you will find that all the homes are on very high land and the bridge is very high and extends right across the flood plain.
John
10
Australians have been foolishly building on flood plains since 1789.
10