It's almost as if 2022 is playing some sick prank: "here Australia, deal with these floods. Newcastle, today you get a massive fire - in the shadow of fuel depot no less; and Tasmania, you can do without the internet."
Just another day, right? And yes, in comparison to so many we are fortunate, but a day without too much of a crisis probably wouldn't go astray.
By the sounds of it, that day will not be tomorrow. Weather boffins are warning the conditions which smashed parts of Queensland and northern NSW are expected to track south with flash-flooding and potentially life-threatening conditions developing.
A heavy rainfall warning has also been issued for Newcastle, Gosford, Sydney, Wollongong, Nowra and as far south as Batemans Bay.
Wind gusts of up to 125 km/h are predicted and the possibility of up to 200mm of rain over six hours tonight.
"At this stage, the system is forecast to approach central and southeastern districts on Tuesday night or during Wednesday, however, uncertainty exists on its exact timing and where the most significant impacts will occur," the NSW Bureau of Meteorology reported.
The Illawarra region is taking preparation seriously and supplies at two sandbag collection points were exhausted before the designated collection time.
A woman has died in her flooded home in northern NSW and people are being warned to brace for more fatalities.
The tragedy is not limited to NSW as there are "grave concerns" for two men still missing in south-east Queensland's floods, which have killed eight people and damaged at least 18,000 homes.
The volunteer-fuelled Mud Army 2.0 has been mobilised to help the clean-up after 795mm rain fell in just three days.
And as they prepare for a potentially wild night, emergency services in Newcastle were this afternoon dealing with a massive fire in a storage property that backs onto an Ampol fuel storage facility
Of course being without the internet for any period of time in the 21st century is almost unthinkable, but that's exactly what happened in Tasmania today.
The state's power utility, TasNetworks, posted on Facebook that "upstream provider issues" were responsible for the major outage.
Hang tough Tassie, the way Wednesday's working out you'll have a lot to catch up on.
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THE NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW:
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Statewide internet outage hits Tasmania
- Govt asked to intervene over shocking living conditions at caravan park
- Bare shelves force supermarket rationing
- Massive fire in shadow of fuel depot visible across Newcastle
- Defence Minister's GoFundMe raises questions about govt flood response
- Australia to send millions of dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine
- Senate inquiry hears how raffles fund a town's medical clinic
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I shouldn't have looked up Nostradamus's prophecies
