21 November 2008

Batten down the hatches, the ants are worried

| johnboy
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Yesterday there was a normal sized ant mound in the driveway, this morning they’ve raised the ramparts significantly. This despite the clear blue skies we’re enjoying this morning.

The BOM forecast reckons 20% chance of late showers.

But the ants seem to think differently. I guess we’ll see.

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This reminds me of the Weathersnike. All we need now is a piece of limp seaweed.

There’s another series of systems arriving from mid-week, but they’re inland ones, and in recent years they haven’t brought the big rainfall totals. ECLs tend to be more spectacular with rainfall. Perhaps the ants think another ECL will form in tandem with the inland troughs?! I hope they’re right.

The ant fortifications have risen to ever greater heights and stand proud. I’ll do another picture tomorrow morning.

Ants 1: Ant Skeptics 0

So – did the ant hill survive the rains, or was it washed away?

2 post nutbag: if anyone wants to see some “on the ground” photoes of the snow, head to
http://forum.weatherzone.com.au
and go to the Breaking Weather forum. You’ll see 2 topics running there for this system, and the last few pages of each have some pretty incredible pictures. They’ve had a LOT of snow around Bathurst, Orange, Oberon and in the Blue Mtns.

I wish this southerly would stop it, it’s worse than anything we got yesterday.

Well, the ants knew something. The cold snap was known-about, but this has now turned into an East Coast Low, which brings lots of moisture and it’s “bombing” right off our coast at the moment, which is what brought all that rain overnight. It’s rare for a cold snap to be also very wet, but this combo will do it.

Lots of snow up around the blue mountains, and the area beyond (lithgow etc). There’s highway closures up there. And it’s still coming… the low has moved slowly up the coast and is still going, there’s a new severe wind warning out for the SE half of the state, and I’m copping near-gale-force southerlies at the moment. More rain is just to the east and will move over us shortly. Um, make that “now”! It’s moving fast.

Spring weather is always a bit weird, but this event is set to break some records.

Apparently light snow just past Murrenbateman.

I don’t like ants in the garden either. As someone else said, they farm pests for their by-products. Out here, many trees are severely damaged by the ants farming scale, to feed of the nectar it produces. It wrecks the saplings though. I regard too many ants with concern and suspicion, and make up a mix of borax and fine sugar to get rid of them.

I don’t think we’ll get much rain out of this system, although it’s nudging up the southern Vic area right now and there is some decent rain falling down there. It’ll be windy as hell though, I’ve already got a strong southerly blowing up here.

This weather system is slated to become an eastern cut-off low, so that would prove me wrong, these often turn into very wet events. However, arctic events are seldom wet.

Vic Bitterman8:10 pm 21 Nov 08

That anthill is screaming for me to line up the rear wheel of my XR600 and drop the clutch.

OMG! 5cm!!

“And I, for one, welcome our new ant overlords”

Only if she wears leather and high heals

Looks like the ants were right – BOM has been updated

Forecast for Friday evening
Fine until showers develop overnight. Moderate to fresh westerly winds, easing overnight.

Precis: Showers developing overnight.

Chance of rainfall: 90% overnight.
Winds on Lake: Northwest 25 to 35 km/h easing to 10 km/h tonight.

Question. Is it a dyke or a tailings dump?

Sorry to double post, but no napalm comments PLEASE!

Sounds like you need pest control !!!!

astrojax said :

are ants generally a good bad or indifferent sign for a garden?

Well they provide hours of fascination for your average toddler which is never a bad thing. Although he does know not to touch them “cos they’ll nip ya”.

Ant bites??

*chuckle*

Most ants bite. You won’t die, but you will probably notice. If they are proper bullants, those REALLY HURT!

In a more general sense, ants can be a problem because some of them are farmers and spread their herds of aphids and scale around the place. Their nests tend to make the soil water resistant (particularly a problem when they set up in a pot).

ant, you should know what’s going on here, no?? 😉

on the subject of [other, not you] ants, i have a nest of bullies moved in under (or next to) a ceramic pot with daphne in on the lawn by the front door – is anything to worry about? are ants generally a good bad or indifferent sign for a garden?

ant said :

However, the ants are on to something, because we are to get a cold snap tomorrow, we could see 15 cm of snow falling on the Snowies and possibly something for the brindies too. It’ll be very windy and bleak and miserable, however we’re not slated to get much precip down here.

What you call windy, bleak and miserable, I call refreshingly cool.

Heh, Hugo got in with the spelling lame, you get moderated for that!

The ants have been unreliable in recent years, as the weather has changed. There were reports of them moving their eggs before this last system in central NSW, but they didn’t get the big falls.

However, the ants are on to something, because we are to get a cold snap tomorrow, we could see 15 cm of snow falling on the Snowies and possibly something for the brindies too. It’ll be very windy and bleak and miserable, however we’re not slated to get much precip down here.

Memo to Johnboy from the pedantic old fart:

Surely you would prefer to get compliments to complement your exquisite prose?

Well, that is reassuring anyway!

Not unless they start moving their young to higher ground Granny. The walls will keep out ordinary rain.

Meat ants are the best – they also put quartz chips (if they can find them) over their nests if they think a fire is coming; something to do with reflecting some of the heat apparently.

I will be expecting the mother of all storms then!

; )

Hmm interesting. Are you insured for flood damage?

the ants never lie

I won’t recaulk the ark until I see the ants taking their eggs to higher ground, but I will be packing my umbrella. Ants are far more accurate than the BOM.

5cm tall, meat ants.

just 1cm tall yesterday.

How about some perspective? How big is this anthill? in centimetres? inches? something to tell how big it is. What type of ants? bull ants? normal everyday garden variety type ants??

Seeing as I don’t have a bulletin to make time on, or the gaps between advertising spaces to fill (what the publishing industry calls what you think of as news) we really don’t do what you think of as slow news days.

It’s there because I want it to be there. If the rest of the content is so compelling you’ve only just felt the need to comment on something that doesn’t interest you then I’ll take that as a complement.

Slow news day – making mountains out of anthills?

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