Flash drought

You're not alone if you're feeling it and take care of yourself and let's take care of each other.

Several years ago, I heard a former climate scientist from the University of Melbourne, David Caroli, talk about flash droughts.

And I was somewhat confused, but now we have a story from the Melbourne Age written by Nick O'Malley and Bianca Hall.

It has the headline, What Flash Droughts and Seeper Aluminium Will Mean for Your Summer.

Here is the audio now.

Australian emergency services are bracing for a fire season supercharged not only by the intensifying super-sized El Nino, but by the increasing threat of flash droughts which act like hot hay dryers, blasting moisture out of soil and scrub faster than the creeping droughts that have long been part of Australian life.

Why once relatively wet winters such as the one just experienced across eastern Australia offered some protection through the fire season.

Increasing temperatures have made flash droughts more common, meaning relatively moist landscapes can suddenly become dry enough to feed fast and dangerous bushfires.

We're in August, and th- that's why it's...

Uh, I learned from Greg Bostwick this morning that we're experiencing what's called a f- a flash drought.

Not a flash flood, but a flash...

Like, everything's become so dry so quick-

Yeah.

But if you direct sow, sometimes, depending on what this crazy climate does, sometimes direct sowing into that hot soil at the beginning of our fall, um, it doesn't make you very successful because it's really hard to keep that moisture content consistent.

Yeah, especially when you're in a flash drought, right?

Yeah.