Gerald Celente – Economic Meltdown Worse Than Great Depression Coming

Economic 9/11 Markets Will Collapse – Gerald Celente

USA Watchdog,

29 September, 2018

Renowned trends researcher Gerald Celente is making a big change to his 2018-2019 economic forecast. Celente says, “We believe we are setting up now for a market crash that will be the worst in modern American history. The fundamentals are . . . the loan bubble. There is $250 trillion worth of debt out there. Let’s put this together. What did the Federal Reserve do last week? They raised interest rates. Now, we are looking at the Fed Funds Rate back to 2008 levels. What’s going on in the emerging markets? As those interest rates go up in the states, you are seeing currencies crashing. They are hitting new lows in Argentina, Turkey and India. At the same time . . . oil is back up at 2014 levels. . . . Go back to the last five recessions. What were they preceded by? Higher oil prices. When the higher oil prices kick in, the recession kicks in, and the markets go down and gold prices go up. . . . We do not give financial advice, but gold right now, we believe, is at the bottom. You might get a price $30 per ounce lower, but the risk is very low . . . because $1,200 per ounce is around mining cost.”

So, what is the timeline for this coming market meltdown? Celente says, “The timeline is tough, but look . . . all you need is one major failure or one major hedge fund pulling out because that’s who is running the show. You look at the number of stocks that have declined . . . . Look at the big hedge funds and the private equity groups that are running this, and look at their debt level. It does not take a genius to figure this out. If you have $250 trillion worth of (global) debt and interest rates are going up, and it’s costing you more to borrow as you are making less, what is going to happen? It’s going to collapse. . . . You’ve got to pay more on your debt, and your debt is ballooning. Of course, it’s going to crash. It’s a Ponzi scheme. . . .It’s going to be worse than the Great Depression. When this thing crashes, it is gone.”

Celente says you should have is physical gold, but don’t wait too long to buy it. Celente says, “There is going to be a spike to the $2,000 per ounce mark when it gets past $1,450. It won’t be a gradual increase. It’s going to be the same thing that happened in the panic of 2008. It was going up slow and, all of a sudden, it escalated. That’s what we are going to see again. Anybody that has half a brain or is not a big sellout knows that this is a big Ponzi scheme. It was created by the federal banksters. It drove up equity markets, and it did not raise the standard of living of people around the world. This is why you see the populist movements popping up throughout Europe. There is going to be violence in the streets when the big crash happens because people are fed up with the establishment.”

ELITES PLAN FOR DE-DOLLARIZATION OF THE U.S. DOLLAR AND COMPLETE FINANCIAL COLLAPSE! PLEASE LISTEN!!

AMTV

US Housing Markets Are Starting To FALL! - Mortgage Rates Are JUMPING!

Where Does Our Attention Belong: Kavanaugh or Yemen?

This is about all I've got to say about the American obsession with a political-charged historical rape case.

Kunstler: The Fog Of Bad Faith

James Howard Kunstler

SMH,

28 September, 2018

There’s a lot to unpack in the national psychodrama that played out in the senate judiciary committee yesterday with Ford v. Kavanaugh. Dr. Ford laid out what The New York Times is calling the “appalling trauma” of her alleged treatment at the hands of Brett Kavanaugh 36 years ago. And Mr. Kavanaugh denied it in tears of rage.

Dr. Ford scored points for showing up and playing her assigned role. She didn’t add any validating evidence to her story, but she appeared sincere. Judge Kavanaugh seemed to express a weepy astonishment that the charge was ever laid on him, but unlike other questionably-charged men in the grim history of the #Metoo campaign he strayed from his assigned role of the groveling apologist offering his neck to the executioner, an unforgivable effrontery to his accusers.

The committee majority’s choice to sub out the questioning to “sex crime prosecutor” Rachel Mitchell was a pitiful bust, shining a dim forensic light on the matter where hot halogen fog lamps might have cut through the emotional murk. But in today’s social climate of sexual hysteria, the “old white men” on the dais dared not engage with the fragile-looking Dr. Ford, lest her head blow up in the witness chair and splatter them with the guilt-of-the-ages. But Ms. Mitchell hardly illuminated Dr. Ford’s disposition as a teenager — like, what seemed to be her 15-year-old’s rush into an adult world of drinking and consort with older boys — or some big holes in her coming-forward decades later.

For instance, a detail in the original tale, the “locked door.” It’s a big deal when the two boys shoved her into the upstairs room, but she escaped the room easily when, as alleged, Mark Judge jumped on the bed bumping Mr. Kavanaugh off of her. It certainly sounds melodramatic to say “they locked the door,” but it didn’t really mean anything in the event.

Ms. Mitchell also never got to the question of Dr. Ford’s whereabouts in the late summer, when the judiciary committee was led to believe by her handlers that she was in California, though she was actually near Washington DC at her parent’s beach house in Delaware, and Mr. Grassley, the committee chair, could have easily dispatched investigators to meet with her there. Instead, the Democrats on the committee put out a cockamamie story about her fear of flying all the way from California - yet Ms. Mitchell established that Mrs. Ford routinely flew long distances, to Bali, for instance, on her surfing trips around the world.

 

Overall, it was impossible to believe that Dr. Ford had not experienced something with somebody — or else why submit to such a grotesque public spectacle — but the matter remains utterly unproved and probably unprovable. Please forgive me for saying I’m also not persuaded that the incident as described by Dr. Ford was such an “appalling trauma” as alleged. If the “party” actually happened, then one would have to assume that 15-year-old Chrissie Blasey, as she was known then, went there of her own volition looking for some kind of fun and excitement. She found more than she bargained for when a boy sprawled on top of her and tried to grope her breasts, grinding his hips against hers, working to un-clothe her, with his pal watching and guffawing on the sidelines — not exactly a suave approach, but a life-changing trauma? Sorry, it sounds conveniently hyperbolic to me.

I suspect there is much more psychodrama in the life of Christine Blasey Ford than we know of at this time. She wasn’t raped and her story stops short of alleging an attempt at rape, whoever was on top of her, though it is apparently now established in the public mind (and the mainstream media) that it was a rape attempt. But according to #Metoo logic, every unhappy sexual incident is an “appalling trauma” that must be avenged by destroying careers and reputations

.

The issues in the bigger picture concern a Democratic Party driven by immense bad faith to any means that justify the defeat of this Supreme Court nominee for reasons that everyone over nine-years-old understands: the fear that a majority conservative court will overturn Roe v. Wade - despite Judge Kavanaugh’s statement many times that it is “settled law.”

What one senses beyond that, though, is the malign spirit of the party’s last candidate for president in the 2016 election and a desperate crusade to continue litigating that outcome until the magic moment when a “blue tide” of midterm election victories seals the ultimate victory over the detested alien in the White House.

Where Does Our Attention Belong: Kavanaugh or Yemen?

Paul Craig Roberts

There are reports that the Washington-initiated and militarily- supported Saudi Arabian war against Yemen have a starving Yemeni population eating leaves. https://www.apnews.com/5a4645766b414fe59b5f00ca3e543bd9

 

The Saudis, with Washington’s GPS support, continue to target school busses, massacring children as an element of the terror assault against the population, trying to break Yemeni resistance by murdering children on school busses. Washington continues to supply the Saudis with the weapons to target school buses and the diplomatic support to protect the criminal Saudi regime from war crimes charges. The European cowards turn their heads. Even Russia is silent.

Putin’s “partnership” with the criminal state of Saudi Arabia is more important.

Isn’t this a far greater offense, an offense that most definitely does not lack evidence, than the accusation that Kavanaugh, a nominee to the US Supreme Court attempted to rape a women 30 or 40 years ago, for which there is no evidence, only accusation, an accusation that the female defense atttorney who questioned for the Senate committee the woman claiming abuse found insufficient for an indictment. 

 https://ijr.com/2018/09/1127079-prosecutor-senators-kavanaugh-vote/?utm_campaign=Conservative%20Daily&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=66291635&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-82CxP-2yx0h29P1Rh97d5GA9G5zgeypMzTy_rsBieAG4wBvGhlxk18p7aPZNrdRp9pvkAoiCd_rw4JmHTJ-JlNljesHA&_hsmi=66291635

Of course, this report could be fake news. As in America fake news has taken over from truthful news, we have no way of knowing. All we can conclude is that America has again made a world-wide fool of herself. Thanks to the Identity Politics of the Clinton-corrupt Democratic Party, in the eyes of the world America has assembled a Supreme Court of serial sexual abusers. Makes one wonder why it is so important to the Russian government that Russia joins the West.

If Kavanaugh attempted to rape someone, why didn’t it come up in his previous judgeship appointment or in his other appointments? Is the reason that these appointtments were not relevant to Roe vs. Wade? Is all the MeToo and Democratic Party hysteria over fear that Kavanaugh will help a conservative court overturn Roe vs. Wade and force women into more responsible sex?

I have never understood why women have considered the termination of life to be a Woman’s Issue as if it is some kind of moral cause. However, I am certain that Roe vs. Wade will not be overturned. After all these years, there are squatters’ rights in women’s ability to choose abortion. The right has existed too long for statutory law to override common law.

Perhaps, instead, the opposition to Kavanaugh is that he is a white heterosexual male, thereby making the time too delayed before the Identity Politics Democrats can load up the Supreme Court with MeToo feminists, transgendered whatever they are, lesbians, homosexuals, and white-hating blacks (see: https://www.rt.com/news/439571-conrad-music-video-kill-whites/ ) in order to “bring justice to the white male exploiter.”

It was left to a Russian publication to ask why CNN published a fifth accuser’s accusation after the accuser had withdrawn the accusation.

https://sputniknews.com/us/201809281068438726-CNN-Fifth-Kavanaugh-Accuser-Story-Recanted/

The real question before the American people is why are they, the media, the government, MeToo feminists, the Identity Politics Democrats and liberal-progressive-left, and conservatives stone silent while Washington enables Saudia Arabia to murder the Yemeni people to the point that Yemenis have to eat leaves in a desperate attempt to survive.

Clearly, the American idiots have no idea whatsoever what a moral issue is.

Netanyahu at Immigration at Paris airport

Weather conditions at the North Pole

It is freezing at the North Pole – JUST

Temperatures yesterday were -1.7 deg Celsius

Australia's koalas head for extinction

Alarming': State ignoring koala data as icon heads towards extinction

SMH,

28 September, 2018

The Berejiklian government is ignoring its own advice on the best regions to project koalas as numbers of the much-loved marsupial plummet towards extinction in the state by mid-century, reports show.

Documents obtained under freedom of information laws by the North Coast Environment Council and the National Parks Association – and released on Save the Koala Day on Friday – found state reserves cover just 0.2 per cent of so-called "koala hubs" that are home to key colonies of the animal.

"To save the koala as a species, governments will need to protect the actual real living koala populations," the council's Susie Russell said. "Calling random areas of forest 'koala reserves' does nothing if there are no koalas living there."

For instance, of 77,517 hectares of koala hubs in north-east NSW, only one-seventh were located in national parks, with a fifth in state forests and the remaining two-thirds on private land, the data show.

Dr Oisin Sweeney, senior ecologist with the NPA, said it must be "deeply frustrating" for Office of Environment and Heritage staff to have work so hard to identify the best koala habitat only to see the government largely ignore this when setting land aside for protection.

Changes to forestry permits that will allow an intensification of logging particularly in the state's north-east of the state, increased land-clearing for farming, and rezoning for housing will further hit key koala habitats, he said.

"By completely ignoring urban development, the government is abandoning a big chunk of known koala colonies," Dr Sweeney said.

 

He estimates the state has about 15,000 to 20,000 koalas, "with almost every biodiversity area in NSW showing alarming declines".

A separate report released on Friday by WWF says koalas will be extinct in NSW by 2050 on current trends "without a significant reduction in tree clearing, mitigation of climate change and [a] major expansion of protected areas". It estimated the koala population sank by one-third to 21,000 by 2010.

Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton defended the government's record, saying its $45 million Koala Strategy to add reserve more habitat, tackle diseases and fix roadkill hotspots was "the biggest commitment by any state government to secure koalas in the wild".

Ms Upton also introduced a bill on Thursday to transfer more than 4500 hectares of state forest to the national park estate, about half of which was habitat. About 20,000 hectares of state forest on the Central Coast, Hunter, Hawkesbury, North Coast and Southern Highlands has now been set aside as new koala reserves, she said.

Labor's environment spokeswoman Penny Sharpe said "the death knell for koalas in NSW is sounding loud and clear".

"Increased land clearing, deforestation, failure to create new National Parks, failing to protect existing koala habitats are the ingredients that will see koalas in NSW lost forever," she said.

Dawn Walker, the Greens spokeswoman for koalas and forests, said the Koala Plan was "a sham" because it failed to halt logging of native forests or wind back looser land-clearing laws. The government should establish a Great Koala National Park in the Coffs Harbour hinterland where a fifth of the state's wild koalas were at risk from logging, she said.

According to the released documents, the Great Koala National Park proposal "is the most important area of public land for koalas in NSW and a conservation priority given the concentration of hubs within its boundaries". About 56 per cent of hubs in the state's north east would be contained within that plan.

An OEH spokeswoman said the koala plan was "based on the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer's recommendations and informed by input from an expert advisory committee".

A centrepiece of the NSW Koala Strategy was the setting aside of large areas "where koalas can thrive and new habitats can be created", and more than 24,000 hectares of state forest would be secured in initial part of the plan, she said.

Hurricane Rosa approaches US Southwest

Strongest Storm on the Planet Headed to Arizona - Rare Path

Rosa Could Dump a Year's Worth of Rain in Two Days

Robert Fanney

The U.S. Southwest is under the gun from what is now major hurricane Rosa. The storm could bring 6-12 months worth of rain for parts of the Southwest in just 1-2 days by early next week. Tropical storms do not typically impact this region of the U.S. However, human-forced climate change is increasing the potential for such events.

Turkey braces for the first hurricane in its history

A very rare Mediterranean hurricane called a "Medicane" set to dump a month's rain on parts of Greece today: Becoming more frequent

One month's rainfall is expected in parts of Greece today, it comes on top of three days of gale-force winds that knocked out power lines in several Attica neighbourhoods and other parts of the country on Thursday.

That weather system has been dubbed Xenophon by experts and is said to be on its way out, though only to be replaced by a Mediterranean storm with tropical characteristics equivalent to a hurricane, or Medicane, that has been named Zorba.

 
The Mediterranean hurricane heading towards Greece reached the southern Ionian Sea on Thursday evening, the meteorological service (Meteo) of the Athens National Observatory said on Thursday.

The hurricane is expected to continue eastward, bringing torrential rain and gale force winds to southern Greece and specifically to the Peloponnese and Crete on Saturday morning, Meteo said.

Hurricanes of this type are called Medicanes and reportedly appear in the Mediterranean once or twice a year.

In Greece they are even rarer, however, this will be the third year in a row that such a cyclone appears.

Before 2016, the Greek weather service recorded a Medicane in 1995.

Turkey braces for Medicane, first hurricane in its modern history

Hurriyet,

28 September, 2018

Turkey is bracing for the first hurricane in its modern history, expected to hit its western coasts on Sept. 30.

A tropical storm formed in the Central Mediterranean is expected to gain strength and move east in the coming days, the state-run Meteorological General Directorate said in a statement on Sept. 27.

Dr. Murat Gündüz, an academic from Dokuz Eylül University (DEU) in the western Turkish province of İzmir told local media the storm is expected to turn into a hurricane on Sept. 28 before hitting Greece and Turkey on the weekend.

Dubbed “Medicane” as a combination of the words “Mediterranean” and “hurricane,” the system is expected to bring winds as fast as 180 kilometers per hour when landfalling in Greece.

After slowing down to 75-120 km per hour on the Greek mainland, the hurricane is expected to hit Turkey’s western coasts, bringing 75 kilograms of rainfall per square meter.

“It will arrive in İzmir on Sept. 30 evening or the morning of Oct. 1. Our predictive models suggest Turkish coasts from the south of İzmir to Antalya will be affected,” Gündüz said, stressing that a Mediterranean hurricane is “a very rare phenomenon.”

It will be the first hurricane in Turkey’s modern history and only around a dozen of them have been recorded in past centuries.

“European countries around the Mediterranean have no official agencies to monitor hurricanes. It is expected we will see more of them in the future due to climate change and we need centers to monitor them,” said Gündüz.

“There is no need for fear or anxiety but we should take precautions,” he said.

'Medicane,' a rare, hurricane-like storm, is on track to hit Europe

Typhoon Trami heading for Japan

Powerful Typhoon Trami to slam Japan with life-threatening impacts

Accuweather,
 28 September, 2018

Trami will threaten lives and property as it slams the Ryukyu Islands and barrels into mainland Japan with destructive winds, flooding rain and an inundating storm surge through Monday.

The powerful typhoon is currently equal to a Category 3 major hurricane in the Atlantic or East Pacific oceans and expected to hold that intensity through the weekend.

Residents should be making the necessary precautions to protect themselves and property against the dangerous typhoon. Those living in coastal communities and in flood-prone areas should pay attention to local authorities and heed evacuation orders.

"Time is running out for preparations in the Ryukyu Islands," said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Kristina Pydynowski.

At this time, all locations in Japan are at risk for impacts from Trami in the coming days.

"Trami remains on track to blast the Ryukyu Islands through Sunday morning, with mainland Japan bracing for the blow Sunday into Monday," Pydynowski said.

The Ryukyu Islands from Okinawa northward and areas from southern Kyushu to Shikoku and south-central Honshu are expected to endure the most severe impacts.

Residents in these communities could be left without power or water for days or weeks in the wake of Trami. Travel via air, rail and roads can be shut down for a time.

Well-built homes can endure major roof or siding damage. Additional property damage can occur as many trees may be downed. Roads littered with tree damage can delay power restoration.

The outermost rain bands of Trami reached the southern Ryukyu Islands on Friday. Rain, wind and inundating seas will continue to increase overnight.

The worst impacts will be from late Friday night into Saturday night across the southern Ryukyu Islands as Trami passes between Miyako and Okinawa.

A sharp turn toward the north and northeast will follow, causing Trami to pass near or just west of Okinawa, Amami, Tokara and Osumi Saturday into Sunday morning.

"These islands are expected to be slammed with destructive wind gusts of 160-225 km/h (100-140 mph) and flooding rain," said Pydynowski. "Dangerous seas building to heights in excess of 10 meters (34 feet) can severely flood coastal communities."

The potential exists for Trami to make landfall in Tokara and Osumi as the storm races northeastward late in the weekend.

This northeast movement will take the center of Trami dangerously close to and eventually onto the southwestern coast of mainland Japan on Sunday.

The southern coast and mountains of Kyushu, Shikoku and Honshu's Kansai region can be blasted by destructive wind gusts similar to what is expected across the Ryukyu Islands.

"Anyone outside during the height of the storm can endure bodily harm or be fatally struck by flying debris," Pydynowski said.

All of Kyushu, Shikoku and western Honshu will face torrential rain that can trigger widespread flooding and mudslides. This includes some of the same communities that endured the historic flooding over the summer.

"Combined with the rain that precedes Trami Friday into Saturday, there can be an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 400 mm (16 inches) across western Japan," Pydynowski said.

"Storm surge flooding along the entire southern coast of Japan will further threaten lives and property Sunday into Sunday night," she added.

Trami will then race across central and eastern Honshu later Sunday into Sunday night.

The heaviest rain may fall north and west of Tokyo, but wind gusts of 95-145 km/h (60-90 mph) can still whip the city on Sunday night. Haneda Airport may be forced to shut down for a time.

While drier weather will quickly return for Monday, the morning commute and daily routines can still be disrupted due to any damage, littered roads or rail lines or power outages left in the wake of Trami.

Hokkaido will be the final stop of Trami in Japan overnight Sunday into Monday, with flooding rain and damaging winds remaining concerns.

With a projected landfall, Trami would be the eighth named storm to strike Japan this year, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls. "There are signs that a ninth may follow next week."

"Out of the seven storms before Trami, six were typhoons," Nicholls added. "The record for landfalling typhoons in Japan is 10 from 2004."

Since Japan has been battered by numerous tropical systems, along with the historic flooding and deadly heat wave, recovery efforts in the wake of Trami can further put a strain on Japan's disaster recovery budget.

Due to the large size and sheer power of Trami, gusty winds and occasional downpours will still affect northern Taiwan, including Taipei, daily through Saturday as a northeast flow streams moisture into the region.

Dangerously rough seas will also be stirred around the island, especially along its northern and eastern coast.

Lebanon responds to Netanyahu

Israel’s making up excuses to attack Lebanon: Foreign Minister

Hal Turner,

28 September, 2018

Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil fired back at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his recent allegations that Hezbollah has missiles stored in southern Beirut.

“Israel is once again making excuses to justify its aggression,” Bassil began.

“They are coming up with excuses to to violate the sovereignty of nations while using the United Nations as a platform,” he continued.

“They forgot how Lebanon defeated them and defeated their aggression,” Bassil said, adding that Israel’s “new friends” wont benefit them in the long-run.

Bassil’s comments were made in response to Netanyahu’s remarks at the United Nations on Thursday.

Israeli massacre five Palestineans

BREAKING: ISRAELIS MACHINE GUN 83 PALESTINIANS, MURDER 5

Fort Russ,

28 September, 2018

At least five Palestinians have lost their lives and nearly three hundred more sustained injuries when Israeli military forces opened fire on a group of protesters participating in anti-occupation rallies along the border between the besieged Gaza Strip and Israeli-occupied territories.

In breaking news, so far 5 Palestinians were murdered today, with an additional 78 being shot with live rounds, and all together more than 300 sustained related injuries, as a result of Israeli security forces opening machine-gun fire upon a protesting crowd. In this extraordinarily gruesome and brutal scene that unfolded today, we have seen something which unfortunately has become all too common, as the Zionist settler-colonial Jewish supremacist entity, calling itself ‘Israel’, continues to defy international law, standards of civility, and numerous and standing UN resolutions which call for an end to its bloodthirsty repression and never-ending land-grabs of indigenous Arab lands.

The Gaza Ministry of Health said in a statement that 14-year-old Mohammed Nayef al-Houm was fatally shot in the chest during “The Great March of Return” protests east of Bureij refugee camp on Friday evening.

FRN regretfully reports that according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, among the 5 murdered was a 14 year old boy named Mohammed Nayef al-Houm, who was fatally shot in the chest during a protest east of the Bureij refugee camp earlier this evening, called ”The Great March of Return”. Palestinians have not given up their right of return, an individual and property right, which no government, whether ‘representative’ or not, can legally give away in the name of a whole people. To wit, the Zionist settlers of Ashkenazi, Russian and Polish origin, humiliate sanity and reason with their mirrored claim, that they are the ones with a ‘right of return’ to lands in the distant Levant, which the Israel government cannot remove from them.

Sadly, an additional pair of youths were among the 5 confirmed murdered – 18 year old Iyad Khalil Amed al-Shaer as well as Mohammed Bassam Shakhseh, aged, 24. They were murdered in Gaza City. At the time of this report, the identities of the remaining two confirmed as murdered by Israeli forces were unknown to FRN at the time of publishing.

Among the 300 odd injured were twenty-two children, as well as three medics and also three journalists.

A minor and a young man were taken to hospital in critical condition. Both had suffered Israeli-inflicted gunshot wounds in the chest.

Since protest rallies against the occupation began again in the Gaza Strip at the end of March, close to 200 Palestinians have been murdered or summarily executed in the streets, with over 20,000 Palestinians sustaining injuries.

Australia headed for a scroching summer

Drier and warmer: Get ready for a toasty three months

IT’S official, September has been one of the driest months ever. If you were hoping for some spring downpours to pep up the gardens we have some bad news.

News.co.au,

28 September, 2018

MUCH of Australia may be in line for a chilly weekend but don’t count on that being a sign of things to come. Quite the contrary in fact.

Meteorologists have forecasted that the reminder of spring will be drier than usual with an increased bushfire risk, particularly in the country’s south east.

The Bureau of Metrology (BOM) has released its three monthly climate outlook which looks ahead to December.

It’s too early to be sure, but all the signs are it could be a very toasty Christmas.

Dr Paul Feikema, a senior hydrologist at the Bureau, said an expected El Nino system, which can bring hotter weather to the east coast, might not kick in until at least December. But that didn’t mean we were off the hook when it came to the sweltering conditions.

“It’s a dry outlook for much of the country with warmer than average days very likely for most of Australia,” Dr Feikema said.

EL NINO

Looking back, Dr Feikema said September would go down as one of the hottest months on record in Australia.

“Alice Springs didn’t have a drop of rain for 161 days, its longest dry spell on record.”

The dry conditions have led to a reduction in overall dam levels. In south eastern Victoria, water storages are at 33 per cent, down from 47 per cent at this time last year.

Dam levels are also lower along the Murray Darling system and the NSW coast. But in south west Western Australia and Tasmania water levels have increased.

Major climate drivers such as the Indian Ocean Dipole and the El Nino, that often bring drier conditions to much of the east, are stuck in neutral. Although, El Nino could make an appearance in December.

“That would be a very late start for El Nino but not unprecedented,” Dr Feikema said.

However, that doesn’t mean the climate drivers aren’t influencing Australia, coupled with a global long-term increasing trend in air and ocean temperatures.

“The above average daytime temperatures observed across Australia so far in 2018 are likely to continue for the remainder of the year.

“Nights are also likely to be warmer than average across Australia, except for the northeastern Northern Territory and the northern to central coast of Queensland, where the chances of warmer or cooler nights are roughly equal.”

BUSHFIRE RISK

Over most of the country there is around an 80 per chance of warmer weather than the average.

The BOM outlook stated current drought areas were unlikely to see significant respite in the coming three months. However, during October average rainfall could fall over most of Western Australia, western South Australia and parts of the east coast to the east of the Great Dividing Range.

There was an above normal bushfire risk in forested areas of the east coast, South Australia and Western Australia. But drought conditions stunting growth has meant grassland areas may be less badly hit as their simply isn’t the level of fuel available.

And New Zealand.... Just because you ignore something and pretend it’s somewhere else as the NZ media does constantly, does not mean it isn’t true.

Niwa forecast: NZ likely to get another El Niño

28 August, 2018

It's now likely New Zealand will see another El Niño climate system soon - although forecasters don't expect it to be as intense as big drought-makers of the past.

Niwa climatologists have shared their outlook for the next three months, predicting average temperatures for most of the country and the likelihood of a slow transition toward an El Niño, which could become established over New Zealand by March.

The ocean-driven system typically brings cooler, wetter conditions, bringing higher rainfall to regions that are normally wet, and often drought to areas that are usually dry.

Farmers in the western, wetter parts of the country often faced significant damage to pastures from too much rainfall, and it was also harder for stock to thrive in the constant wet.

One horror El Niño in the summer of 1997/1998 cost the country hundreds of millions of dollars - but if one did arrive, Niwa didn't it to be intense as that, nor the big drys of 1982-83 and 2015/16.

International models suggested a 65 per cent chance of the tropical Pacific shifting toward El Niño between now and November.

"The probability for El Niño conditions being established increases as we reach into and beyond the Southern Hemisphere summer, with a 78 per cent chance for El Niño conditions over the March – May 2019 period," Niwa reported.

"Indications are that the event – if it eventuates – will not be in the strong category."

Meanwhile, Niwa's outlook forecast average temperatures for everywhere during spring except for the north and east of the North Island, where near average temperatures were most likely.

Also in those areas, rainfall levels would most likely to near normal, while the rest of the country would receive either near or below normal amounts.

Soil moisture levels and river flows were forecast to be near normal or below normal for all regions except for the east of the South Island, where below normal soil moisture levels and river flows were expected.

Areas in the south and west of the country could see cold nights and mornings, as well as frosts and fog, especially early in the spring season.

However, seas that warmed around New Zealand this month may help "lessen the sting" of colder airmasses as they pushed toward the country during the season, Niwa reported.