Health News at Your Fingertips

Guardian Australia photographer Mike Bowers is out and about getting shots of the thunderstorms.

He’s taken an incredible shot of the storm on the Hay Plains between Narrandera and Hay.

As expected the Reserve Bank has left its cash rate at the record 0.1% rate after its latest monthly board meeting.

There’s not a lot of shifting in the language, with the RBA governor, Philip Lowe, saying he plans to be “patient” about raising the rate. For one thing, the board hasn’t seen enough price increases or wage growth to be convinced Australia’s underlying inflation rate will be “sustainably” within the 2% to 3% annual range just yet.

There are uncertainties about how persistent the pick-up in inflation will be given recent developments in global energy markets and ongoing supply-side problems, Lowe said in a statement.

At the same time, wages growth remains modest and it is likely to be some time yet before growth in labour costs is at a rate consistent with inflation being sustainably at target. The board is prepared to be patient as it monitors how the various factors affecting inflation in Australia evolve.

Of course the Russian invasion of Ukraine is something new since the February RBA meeting:

The war in Ukraine is a major new source of uncertainty.

Inflation in parts of the world has increased sharply due to large increases in energy prices and disruptions to supply chains at a time of strong demand.

If anything, that sort of uncertainty sounds like it would prompt central bankers everywhere to be just a bit more hesitant when it comes to raising rates.

Some of that assessment is already showing up in the short-term markets that investors can bet on, when it comes to anticipating rate rises. Lately, those punters have pushed back the timing of the first RBA move to July, assuming that first rise is to 0.25%.

Telstra has confirmed that cuts in the cables to Tasmania are responsible for the entire internet and mobile outage in the state.

Internet services went down for the entire state in the early afternoon on Tuesday, amid reports that Tasmania was down to 30% of its usual internet traffic.

A spokesperson for Telstra confirmed the issue was under investigation:

We are urgently investigating an issue impacting Telstra mobile and fixed connectivity in Tasmania. We believe it is the result of two separate cable cuts on the main routes into Tasmania.

We are urgently working to resolve the issue. Further updates will be provided shortly.

The severe floods in northern NSW have days before the river levels drop back to more normal levels.

At Lismore, for instance, the Wilsons River may be two metres before its recent peak, but that would have roughly matched any previous record for that town:

As we reported here, Lismore Shire recently reviewed its flood mitigation efforts, and had decided to raise the town levee from protecting Lismore from a flood with a return period in the order of one in 10 years to one in 20. Well, that’s going to have to be reviewed now, of course.

The big rain event is heading southwards and likely to develop into that “beast of the near east”, an east coast low.

The Bureau of Meteorology’s Dean Narramore told a media conference this morning that the low was likely to be “compact” but could dump as much as 200mm on various places near Sydney if not on top of it.

More of that here:

Interestingly, that media conference heard Warragamba Dam near Sydney was at 94% … with the official misspeaking. It’s actually at 99% today and expected to spill tomorrow but – so far – at a lot smaller rate than in March when large areas of the Hawkesbury-Nepean floodplain lived up to its name.

Just for a bit of context, though. The past year has been very wet for parts of eastern Australia, particularly most of NSW. As the following shows, over the past four years, many areas remain seriously dry … underscoring how severe that big drought was.