That said, on rare occasions, the weather does something so unusual that it makes the news! At the present time the weather is doing something so exceptional that it is making the news worldwide. But although the weather is record breaking, our historical records are relatively short – sometimes no longer than 200 years.

Of course the indigenous history is longer, but it has not been used, at least as far as I am aware to supplement the weather record since British settlement.

Disregarding the devastation to life and property, watching the current weather patterns unfold is incredibly interesting from a scientific perspective because it is connected at such a macro scale (including sea temperature). Understanding all of these interconnections will be necessary to protect life and property in the future.

My misconception, based on tourist posters etc, that Australia had an almost perfectly-benign climate, is definitely taking a buffeting from Cyclone Oswald.

I am hoping that there are no earthquakes due – remembering the Christchurch earthquake and the Tsunami in Japan. I wonder whether people in New Zealand and Japan are feeling nervous as the weather events unfold in Australia?

There doesn’t seem to be any logical connection between a cyclone and an earthquake.

The traditional Japanese defense against earthquakes was a high mud wall round the garden defending a light wooden structure. The light timber frame structure could collapse without doing too much damage and could be easily repaired. The mud wall defended against theives and also against the fires which follow earthquakes. Would mud walls help against bush fires?

The second line of defence would be to assume that the building has caught alight and the occupants have stayed to defend their property and need to survive the fire.

Floodable buildings can and should be the norm in areas of high flood-risk, just as they build earthquake proof buildings in areas of high earthquake-risk.
Could/should they put a degree of fire-resistence into buildings in high fire-risk? Every house in Switzerland has a cellar, in case of nuclear war. Could Australian houses have fire-proof cellars and concrete frames which are not TOO hard to re-clad? Or are there any more significant fire-proofing measures?

In the case of building on flood plains there is much the same scenario – a flood plain will inevitably flood periodically. The question is how do you respond to this? If the answer is ignore the inevitable and then complain when it happens, clearly this is less than sensible.
However, if the answer is to look for designed or planned solutions which are holistic this is clearly more reasonable.

In a bushfire risk zone – there is a risk of bushfire rather than an inevitability. However, clearly precautions should sensibly be taken to reduce this risk as much as possible.

I am assuming that actions need to be taken at a range of levels – and in some instances public flood defences like the Thames Barrier are the right solution – and in other instances flood protection needs to be incorporated at the Borough and individual home level.

In the UK there are constant problems with houses being built in the flood plains of rivers – and then being damaged by floods. The owners want public money to be spent on flood protection.
Could it be that the residential property being built in the bush falls into a comparable category? ie would it be better to discourage building in fire-risk areas?

Mostly it would seem authorities are re-active to issues that are before them. The toll on life would appear to be less than in previous seasons, however the property losses are still great. It is unclear to authorities at present whether they are dealing with a cyclical natural phenomenon or whether the the incidents are being exacerbated by climate change.

It is interesting that although there are still a percentage of accidential lightings, mostly due to lack of care with camp fires, and possibly with authorities not been stricter about banning these earlier and more widely in hazardous conditions, there have been no reported fires lit by cigarettes (which in the past contributed significantly to road side fires). So progress is being made!