KEY POINTS:
Fire, tempest, floods, sharks, spiders, snakes, locusts ... after a slow start, summer has arrived in Australia with its traditional fury.
In the north, a weakening cyclone dumped torrential rain on regions already inundated by floodwaters, and emergency services in northern Western Australia have reported a rush of
calls for help from 4WD vehicles bogged in thick mud after heavy rain in the Pilbara.
A shark yesterday attacked snorkeller Steven Foggarty, 24, in New South Wales, the third attack within two days amid rising shark sightings and warnings on beaches around the continent.
Firefighters have been hard at work in New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania as the nation prepares for another roasting this week, locusts are hatching, and a frightening variety of venomous creatures are baring their fangs. Just another day in paradise.
In the surf, debate is again raging over an apparent surge in the number of sharks in shallow waters following yesterday's attack at the mouth of a lake near Wollongong, south of Sydney. Foggarty punched the shark as it bit his leg, leaving more than 50 punctures in his calf, and was rescued by a passing boat.
On Sunday 31-year-old surfer Jonathan Beard suffered a serious injury to his leg when what is believed to have been a bull shark attacked him near Fingal beach on the NSW far north coast.
And in Tasmania 13-year-old Hannah Mighall was mauled by a 5m great white that bit through her surfboard and into her lower leg.
"I just remember seeing her head go diagonally down towards the water and then she just disappeared," cousin Syb Mundy told ABC Radio.
"I was just praying for her to come back up and she did.
"She was slapping it and screaming 'get it off me, get if off me'."
The shark released the teenager, but circled beneath them as they paddled to shore.
The attacks, and a spate of sightings at beaches across Australia, has prompted speculation that sharks have been forced inshore and to attack humans - not their normal prey - because of overfishing.
Shark hunter Vic Hislop told Macquarie Radio that 200 years of overfishing had set sharks against "gentler" prey such as turtles, dolphins and dugongs.
"That's what's in their stomachs now every day," he said.
"As the turtles disappear, which is inevitable, and the dugong herds disappear, humans are next in line on the food chain. It will definitely get worse."
But Queensland Primary Industries Department expert Dr Wayne Sumpton told the ABC that 60 years of records had not shown any differences in shark movements and that sightings were more common at this time of year because it was spawning season.
Meanwhile, the nation's landlocked creepy crawlies have been busy.
A 3-year-old boy last week survived a bite from a 2.5m brown snake - one of Australia's most dangerous species - in a river near Kurrajong, northwest of Sydney.
The attack highlighted reports around the nation of unusual numbers of bitings from snakes and spiders, and of equally scary sightings and captures of lethal funnel-web spiders in Sydney.
In Victoria, farmers are being urged to report and spray hatchings of plague locusts. If they fail, swarms of locusts could devastate crops.
And in north Queensland Cyclone Charlotte, the first cyclone of the season, was yesterday downgraded to a tropical low as it lost intensity after moved on to land between Townsville and Cairns.
But high winds still lashed parts of north Queensland, while a monsoonal trough caused flooding in Cairns.
