Halt the Salt

Video (6min 32sec) of the east coast of Exmouth Gulf after rain. The second half of the video shows before the rain. The video indicates the flow of freshwater and silt through the wetlands system. Also see images below.

Straits Resources has previously sought to refute the importance of these rainfall events and has claimed they are a rare occurrence. But the new footage again demonstrates the importance of these recharge events to the Exmouth Gulf eco-system.

This is the first time since the Halt the Salt Campaign commenced two and a half years ago that we have had a significant rainfall event over Yannarie Creek catchment despite six cyclones having been in the vicinity since that time.

But this just underlines the sporadic but critical nature of these events. Of the six, all were closer to Exmouth gulf than TC Pancho which was 700 km to the west of Ningaloo. But TC Pancho was the one! 380mm of rain in one day at North West Cape!

Rainfall events since the Cylone Bobby event have been:

Cyclone details since 1995:
TC Bobby Feb 1995
TC Frank Dec 1995
TC Vance Mar 1999
TC Steve Mar 2000
TC Pancho March 2008 (trough triggered by cyclone 700km off the coast) (268mm over 4 days at Learmonth Airport 20 km south of Exmouth)

Also, in June 2002 a low pressure system caused 89mm of rain to fall in Exmouth in 4 hours. As a consequence, flood waters from the town of Exmouth broke through as a fast flowing torrent into the marina, causing 2 prawning trawlers to turn turtle in their cyclone proof pens.

All these cyclones had rainfall in excess of 200mm associated with them.

Images courtesy http://www.hdvunderwater.com/