Water in Lake Eyre

Submitted: Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 11:43
ThreadID: 69469 Views:3535 Replies:6 FollowUps:6
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Just chatting to a fella who'se just returned. Despite a flight over the area and driving around the usual spots, he still thinks it's a media beat up.
Apparently the number of birds in the area was also a bit disappointing.
Despite all that, he enjoyed the trip :))
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Reply By: Member - Fred B (NT) - Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 11:59

Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 11:59
Hi Footy,
the poor 'bugger'.... lol... (: If it was so bad, I would have willingly put up with all that on his behalf... then he wouldn't have had to suffer all that hardship.... (: I would gladly have sent him a 'trip report' and photos.
lol.
Fred B
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AnswerID: 368241

Reply By: TerraFirma - Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 12:48

Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 12:48
Ripped this from the following link:

http://www.lakeeyreyc.com/fldhist.html


Most Flood Level Reports are Wildly Innaccurate

Lake Eyre has some water in it more often than many would lead you to believe. When Halligan flew over the Lake in the 1920's and reported it as being about one third full he was ridiculed by seasoned explorers.
Today we have similar situations where land based observers can't believe the dry Lake they are looking at contains water and airborne observers are claiming that the "Lake is the fullest it's been in years". Quite often they are both wrong!
Why:

Most people who travel over land to view the Lake arrive at a point on the Lake where it is shallow and often dry, for example William Creek to ABC bay, or arrive at a basin that is not currently flooded, for example Madigan Gulf in a Warburton flood.
Aerial observers, especially in a floods initial stages, see the sky reflected across the entire wet surface of the Lake and claim it is "full". Most of this water is very shallow, say 10mm deep, and still FLOWING to deeper parts of the Lake.
Of course the tourist industry would prefer the Lake to be full for only the second time this century every year. The possibility of any water being in the Lake generally causes a flurry of exagerated claims to reach an ignorant city based media. Roll out some file footage and you've got a story.
Reliable Information From Satellite Images

In the early days the Commodore was faced with the difficulty of deciding if the 3000km round trip would result in a successfull sailing adventure. Phone calls to locals, rangers, policemen, publicans and pilots gave wildly conflicting reports. Their report was based on limited personal observation and heresay - a more reliable method was required.
Landsat satellite images available from the Auslig web site http://www.auslig.gov.au were proven to be the most reliable way of determining these parameters. Of course the images were first "calibrated" using published depth diagrams checked by actual depth measurements on sailing trips. Experience has shown depths can be estimated within 100mm in the navigation critical 1 to 3metre depth range.
With experience water proximity to certain features in the Lake can quickly indicate depth. Recent local rain can make the whole Lake appear dark and give a misleading indication of depth. A more accurate reading can only be made when the Lake is either white(or light blue) salt where dry and dark blue where the depth is greater than 50mm.
Water inflow is crudely, but interestingly, represented by the units 1-3 for each source. 1 = minor flood, 2 = moderate and 3 = overflowing the bank. The units (Floodges) add to produce the coloured bar graph. The colours indicate the source - reds the Warburton, yellow the Cooper, blues flow into LES and the greens the western creeks into LEN. An observation being that local rains comtribute to navigable floods more than may have been previously thought.
AnswerID: 368244

Follow Up By: Member - Footloose - Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 14:12

Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 14:12
Thanks, Terra, there are some interesting points there.
I wasn't saying that there isn't any water in Lake Eyre; just that for the average tourist even a flight isn't going to show very much.
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FollowupID: 635808

Follow Up By: Crackles - Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 17:29

Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 17:29
"Most Flood Level Reports are Wildly Innaccurate "
Funny you should copy that report from the Lake Eyre Yacht club as members of that very organization at William Creek were only just a few weeks ago still spruking that Lake Eyre South was going to fill next month & expected to be able to sail their boats! In the next breath they were looking for donations towards the club :-) Talk about a beat up for financial gain. On a Jeep forum one guy who took a 2 hour flight over the lake recently was dissapointed to see a total of only 10 birds.
Then again no one should be too surprised. Early on a couple on here (ExOz)were reporting that the Lake wouldn't fill this year & that there would be very little to see particually from the ground. Oh well maybe next year.
Cheers Craig...............
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FollowupID: 635827

Follow Up By: Bob the - Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 21:18

Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 21:18
G'day everyone,Recently returned from Birdsville/Eyre creek trip,plenty of birdlife to be seen on the creek if your quiet, as for the flights over the lake,well was told at all places I stopped to ask about the flights the pilots are not allowed to disturb the birds are while they are nesting...
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FollowupID: 635886

Reply By: Flywest - Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 17:50

Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 17:50
Makes one wonder why we haven't yet dug the channel to the coast in SA - to flood Lake Eyre permanently by connecting it to the ocean as an inland sea!

Navigable access to the inland of Australia - imagine the marina/canal & waterfront land developments and the resultant extra rainfall for the interior.

Like bringing water down from the Kimberlies - are there no forward thinkers left in this country?.

What a shame - Australia could be so much MORE than it currently is.

All we need is a little leadership with MORE than just a "next election power focus"

One wonders just what would have happened if the "Joh for PM" movement had got up? ;o)
Free punkin scones for everyone?

Who knows!

Cheers.
AnswerID: 368268

Follow Up By: Member - Tony & Julie (FNQ) - Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 18:55

Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 18:55
Great Idea! That also would get rid of some of the rising sea levels attributed to Global Warming :-)

Imagine taking your beach rod on your desert trip. I say go for it. Cheers Tony
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FollowupID: 635861

Follow Up By: tazbaz - Friday, Jun 05, 2009 at 11:28

Friday, Jun 05, 2009 at 11:28
Spot on Flywest - or if the Whitlam Government had been given a proper go
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FollowupID: 636090

Reply By: MobiCondo - Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 19:02

Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 19:02
G'day Flywest, re the channel from Spencer Gulf to Lake Eyre. This was discussed at wro a few years back and I emailed the CSIRO asking what the idea's merit might be. They answered in quite detail, with words to the effect that it has been 'modelled' and that there are some huge interelated factors which would turn out to be negatives to the immediate and more distant regions which would cause more problems that it warranted.
Cheers - Mobi
AnswerID: 368284

Follow Up By: MobiCondo - Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 21:33

Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 21:33
Err - derr! Make that work not wro!
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FollowupID: 635888

Reply By: Richard W (NSW) - Saturday, Jun 06, 2009 at 06:16

Saturday, Jun 06, 2009 at 06:16
Flew over from William Creek on May 8 and saw a small flock of Pelicans and two small flocks of Banded Stilts on one of the islands. Things may have changed a lot since then.

Channel 7 was there filming a promo for next years Outback Muster. We had to reshedule pre booked flights. :(
AnswerID: 368670

Reply By: Wayne (NSW) - Saturday, Jun 06, 2009 at 12:09

Saturday, Jun 06, 2009 at 12:09
Footy,

Flew over Lake Eyre on Wednesday 3rd June. Most of the flights that are happening are from William Creek or Marree and take in the southern end of Lake Eyre.

We flew out of Mungerannie and after just 10 min we were flying over vast amounts of water in Lake Eyre North. The bird life mainly Pelicans and ducks were in large flocks but according to the pilot there numbers were decreasing as quickly as the water. One of the flights, camels and horses were spotted in the dunes near the waters edge.

I did take some photos out of the window of the plane that show water as far as you could see but it is less than 300mm in most places and up to 500mm in the deeper channel. The water is at the point now that it is evaporating as fast as it is flowing.

The amount of air traffic was amazing. How ever we did not see another plane in the area that we were flying. The reason for this is that there are no charter flights out of Mungerannie, we had made arrangements prior to leaving Sydney for the plane to be there and to take the convey of 21 people on 5 x 90min flights. This was the high light of the trip and everyone was more than happy with the experience.

Wayne
AnswerID: 368692

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