Utes packed to the brim as coastal residents flee Cyclone Trevor

Mattresses, blankets and other precious items are being packed tight into utes in the Gulf of Carpentaria town of Borroloola as residents flee ahead of Cyclone Trevor's arrival.

Residents of Borroloola pile into a C-130
Hercules to evacuate from Cyclone Trevor.

If the cyclone tracks on the path that is predicted, it could slam into the town at full force as a category four storm system on Saturday.

"Most of them are getting evacuated — the babies, the mums and the elderly," resident Nola Anderson said.

"Others that can drive out are driving out now.”

Fuel vouchers have been distributed by a Borroloola Aboriginal organisation to help people escape the impending storm system.

Read the ABC News story by Emily Smith, Emelia Terzon and Matt Garrick - “Utes packed to the brim as coastal residents flee Cyclone Trevor.”

Extreme weather likely behind worst recorded mangrove dieback in northern Australia

One of the worst instances of mangrove forest dieback ever recorded globally struck Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria in the summer of 2015-16. A combination of extreme temperatures, drought and lowered sea levels likely caused this dieback, according to our investigation published in the journal Marine and Freshwater Research.

Views of seaward mangrove fringes showing foreshore
sections of minor (left side) and extreme (right side)
 damage as observed in June 2016 between Limmen
and MacArthur rivers, NT. These might effectively also
 represent before and after scenarios, but together show
 how some shoreline sections have been left
exposed and vulnerable. 

The dieback, which coincided with the Great Barrier Reef’s worst ever bleaching event, affected 1,000km of coastline between the Roper River in the Northern Territory and Karumba in Queensland.

About 7,400 hectares, or 6%, of the gulf’s mangrove forest had died. Losses were most severe in the NT, where around 5,500ha of mangroves suffered dieback. Some of the gulf’s many catchments, such as the Robinson and McArthur rivers, lost up to 26% of their mangroves.

Read the story on The Conversation - “Extreme weather likely behind worst recorded mangrove dieback in northern Australia.”