South Australian cyclone

A tornado which tore across farming areas of Eyre Peninsula in South Australia has been filmed on a mobile phone. Local Billy Branson captured the footage, while another ABC listener Mark, at Cummins, also photographed the tornado on his mobile phone.Matt Collopy from the Bureau of Meteorology said it was an unusual weather event for South Australia ."To actually get a report of a tornado itself is very rare," he said. Senior forecaster Mark Anolak said storms were likely to continue throughout the state into Thursday."With the thunderstorms we are expecting generally five to 10 millimetres across eastern parts of the state, probably less than five millimetres over the western parts of the state, but in the far east with the thunderstorms, local heavy falls are possible, getting up to 20, 30 millimetres," he said.Local resident Darren Kelly said the wild weather came without warning."We just see a bit of cloud an lightning kicking around out west, or north-west from here, from Cummins and then it sort of just come in and dumped a fair amount of rain in a short amount of time," he said.

WA quakes

There's been a whole lot of shaking going on, of the earthquake variety, in a small West Australian wheatbelt town.Beacon, 320km north-west of Perth, has had roughly 100 earthquakes in the last month, Geoscience Australia seismologist Phil Cummins said on Sunday.
Between three and six earthquakes registering three and above on the Richter Scale had been detected in the area in the last month."A few of those have been in the mid to high fours," Mr Cummins said.The largest, which registered nearly five on the Richter Scale came within 24 hours of earthquakes in Melbourne and off the coast near Broome on Friday."That could be felt over a wide area, it could even cause damage if you were right on top of it, minor damage," Mr Cummins said."Certainly these were as big as the ones that shook all of Melbourne."I think for the people in the wheatbelt who are used to earthquakes, they probably don't get too upset about it but you take the same earthquake and put it in Melbourne where people haven't experienced it and people can be very upset."The earthquake clusters, known as swarms, were not unusual for the wheatbelt area but what was unusual was the migration of the swarms around the wheatbelt.Similar patterns were noted in Koorda in 2003 to 2005 and Burrakin between 2000 and 2002."These ones like the Beacon case where you seem to get several moderate earthquakes and then lots and lots of smaller quakes, it is a bit unusual," Mr Cummins said."It's called a swarm because it doesn't follow the typical foreshock, minishock, aftershock pattern or at least it doesn't seem to," he said."That's this migrating swarm, I'm not sure I've ever heard of that before."For that area it would seem that this behaviour is not typical."Seismologists were uncertain if the swarms were related to larger earthquake events such as the wheatbelt's Meckering earthquake in 1968, which registered 6.8 on the Richter scale.
The seismic activity could be relieving stresses and avoiding larger earthquakes or it could result in a big rupture."We just don't know ..." Mr Cummins said."The big question really is whether it has any relationship to larger earthquakes which occur."How long the seismic activity lasts for the residents of rural Beacon is anyone's guess, Mr Cummins said."They seem to die out gradually, we don't really know that much of what to expect, I mean Burrakin went on for a couple of years, Koorda sort of gradually started up and faded out," he said."It could continue for a while."

South western oz rock & roll

The earth tremor that rocked the centre of Melbourne was one of three quakes that hit Australia in the one day, a seismologist says.Melbourne residents reported buildings shaking across the metropolitan area when a tremor struck at 8.55pm (AEDT) on Friday.Geoscience Australia, which monitors earthquake activity, said the tremor measured magnitude 4.6 on the Richter scale , with the epicentre at Korumburra, about 90km southeast of Melbourne .The US Geological Survey reported on its website the tremor measured 4.7.Geoscience Australia's duty seismologist Phil Cummins said residents across a wide area felt the Melbourne tremor - one of three quakes to hit Australian that day."There were many reports from across a wide area - this was felt across a 100km radius," he told AAP on Friday."It was certainly a moderate earthquake that was likely to be felt across a wide area but is unlikely to have caused any damage, except possibly some minor damage near the epicentre."He said tremors were also felt near Broome in WA and near Beacon in WA's wheatbelt."Those were both close to magnitude five," he told ABC radio on Saturday."They occurred in remote areas so they were felt by far fewer people than this (the Melbourne ) one."But it is quite remarkable that we get three of roughly the same size in the one day."Victorian State Emergency Service (SES) spokesman Allen Briggs said the service was inundated with phone calls from the public after the Melbourne tremor but there had been no reports of any damage."It was certainly enough to rattle windows and we've had reports it was felt in metropolitan Melbourne and as far down as Warragul and Leongatha in Gippsland," Mr Briggs said on Friday.Ron Smith, who lives in Kew, in Melbourne's inner northeast, said he was relaxing at home when he felt the building shake."Jeez, it came as a bit of a surprise. We were just sitting around when all of a sudden the place starts vibrating," he said.Residents in Reservoir, in Melbourne's north, and householders in the Dandenong Ranges east of the city, reported feeling the tremor shortly before 9pm."It felt like a large truck driving past the house," Charisse Ede, of Monbulk, said, adding she felt a second, smaller tremor a few minutes later.A spokeswoman for Victoria Police said the incident had also been reported to the police but she advised members of the public to only dial triple-0 in an emergency situation.

comments from people who experienced the quake were:rumbling shook my house, the wooden floors were what made the most noise, squeaking nails and creaking wood; I heard a deep rumbling sound; We live in a two-storey home with a concrete slab in Ringwood North. Upstairs I was laying in bed and felt the tremor. Sliding doors were knocking together, bed shaking, lasting at least a minute. Interestingly enough I came down stairs to see what was going on and those downstairs on the slab felt nothing; as the rumbling reached its peak, everything started to shake back and forth and slightly up and down; we heard a wind-like sound; it felt like a wave passing through the house

HQJOC opens officially

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has officially opened the new Australian Defence Force (ADF) headquarters near Canberra, today.

Up to 750 ADF staff will work at the $300 million centre in Bungendore, NSW.

"This is a great and good day for the Australian defence community," Mr Rudd told the crowd at the opening ceremony on Saturday.