Bundy to face more wild weather

A LONG-RANGE weather forecaster who predicted as far back as 2009 the Christmas floods would hit Bundaberg says there is more wild weather on the way.

Bundaberg-based forecaster Hayden Walker is predicting good to heavy rains for most areas of the Queensland coast in the next few months.

And he says more rain to inland areas could cause more flooding for coastal areas.

“It will definitely affect us in Bundaberg,” Mr Walker said.

“We’re not out of the woods yet.”

He is also predicting cyclones will affect the Queensland coastline, with as many as three making landfall by early March.

Mr Walker is predicting a cyclone to affect Queensland near the end of January or the beginning of February.

Another one could form in the last week of February, and then another at the beginning of March.

“I am also looking at cyclones to come down as far as the Queensland-NSW border,” he said.

“We’re overdue for that, and I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet.”

Mr Walker uses solar activity to make his predictions.

“There is a huge amount of solar activity and solar flares at the moment,” he said.

Mr Walker said he had been predicting the recent floods that hit the region for some time.

He said he did not want to be a scaremonger, but felt he had to predict the weather as he saw it.

He said his method of predicting the weather based on solar activity dated back to 1892.

“What happens on the sun’s surface affects what happens on the earth’s surface,” he said.

“When you get intense solar activity it influences the earth’s weather.”

Mr Walker said agencies overseas were more involved in monitoring sunspot activity to predict the weather.

In Australia, weather forecasters were more interested in the El Nino-La Nina influences.

“I don’t think that’s a very good way of doing long-term forecasting,” he said.

Mr Walker learnt his methods from his father, long-range weather forecaster Lennox Walker.

He claims an accuracy rate for his predictions of about 80%.