The drought seems to be getting worse

[DiscoMick]

The drought is biting in SE Qld, so I can only imagine how some other places are going.
We recently put in a second tank at Maleny, so we now have 32,000 litres of storage, but the 10,000 litre tank is empty and we will still need to buy water by October if it hasn't rained by then. Its 'Rainy Maleny', surely it will rain soon?
How are we all doing?

Queensland towns face million-dollar water-carting bills if rain stays away (https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/queensland-towns-face-million-dollar-water-carting-bills-if-rain-stays-away-20190729-p52bro.html)

[donh54]

The drought is biting in SE Qld, so I can only imagine how some other places are going.
We recently out in a second tank at Maleny, so we now have 32,000 litres of storage, but the 10,000 litre tank is empty and we will still need to buy water by October if it hasn't rained by then. Its 'Rainy Maleny', sure it will rain soon?
How are we all doing?

Queensland towns face million-dollar water-carting bills if rain stays away (https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/queensland-towns-face-million-dollar-water-carting-bills-if-rain-stays-away-20190729-p52bro.html)Warwick is as dry as a bats bum, too!

[Old Farang]

The drought seems to be getting worse

World wide phenomena it seems. For Australia the current synoptic charts show a huge high pressure area south of the Great Australian Bight. This is in fact a summer pattern. WA and Southern states depend on cold fronts / low pressure cells moving in from the Southern and Indian ocean, not so much so for Queensland. The high pressure areas should be much further north at this time of the year, to allow low pressure areas to move over the land.
WA started off late but the South West has had some really good rain, although it has stopped now. The current prediction from BOM suggests much lower rain fall and increased higher temperatures right across Australia for the rest of this year.

Here in Thailand there is also a worsening drought!

Global weather chaos shrivels Asia’s crop production (https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/1721343/global-weather-chaos-shrivels-asias-crop-production)

Global weather chaos shrivels Asia’s cropproduction

In a yearwhen record heat is scorching Europe and the heaviest rain in decades hasinundated parts of the US Midwest, the Asia Pacific region is suffering fromits own maelstrom of extreme weather.

[DiscoMick]

Warwick is as dry as a bats bum, too!Yes, Warwick gets a large mention in the story.

[DiscoMick]

World wide phenomena it seems. For Australia the current synoptic charts show a huge high pressure area south of the Great Australian Bight. This is in fact a summer pattern. WA and Southern states depend on cold fronts / low pressure cells moving in from the Southern and Indian ocean, not so much so for Queensland. The high pressure areas should be much further north at this time of the year, to allow low pressure areas to move over the land.
WA started off late but the South West has had some really good rain, although it has stopped now. The current prediction from BOM suggests much lower rain fall and increased higher temperatures right across Australia for the rest of this year.

Here in Thailand there is also a worsening drought!

Global weather chaos shrivels Asia’s crop production (https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/1721343/global-weather-chaos-shrivels-asias-crop-production)

Global weather chaos shrivels Asia’s cropproduction

In a yearwhen record heat is scorching Europe and the heaviest rain in decades hasinundated parts of the US Midwest, the Asia Pacific region is suffering fromits own maelstrom of extreme weather.


Did Thailand get the usual wet season rain?

[Old Farang]

Did Thailand get the usual wet season rain?
No, the SW Monsoon is a complete fizzer! There is very little surface wind, hence no rain bearing clouds. Upper winds are stronger, but all they do is blow towards China! There has been an odd storm both here in Bangkok, and the North, but no substantial rains.

It is a strange pattern. The SW Monsoon seems to be getting deflected away to the North by huge areas of high pressure in the Northern Indian Ocean. There have been excessive rain and floods in Nepal and other areas of the Himalayas, and less rain in parts of southern India.

[DiscoMick]

I remember seeing parts of Bangkok flooded. I once nearly drowned my Vios in a slum there.

[Saitch]

Our two 10,000 gal house tanks are 5/6ths full but there is only the two of us.

[1950landy]

I am in Brisbane , it is so long since we had any rain my 3X 3000Lit. tanks ran dry last week.
The one out the back I only use for watering the pot plants once a week & the two beside the garage I use to wash the cars & top up the pool. Urban Utilities is too greedy to put water restrictions on yet.[bighmmm]
We did a trip to Narrabri travelling through Stanthorpe , Glen Innis , Inverell , Moree to Narrabri in June none of the streams were running & most were dry. The river in Narrabri had islands in it . We go down that way every June for the North West Rally this is the worst I have ever seen it.:thumbsdown:

[donh54]

According to Inigo Jones and others of his ilk, nothing substantial is expected until 2022, when the solar activities will be kinder to Australia

[Landy Smurf]

Our local dams is at 2.2%, the other local dams are 1% and 8.9%.
So yeah it isn't the best at the moment.

[ramblingboy42]

I know the 28day forecast in central Australia shows nothing

[ramblingboy42]

a dry spring is not a good thing

[Pickles2]

Different regions seem to be experiencing differing variations.
We've just spent several days in the Mallee, & their rainfall to date this season has been absolutely perfect, everything is green, (a rare occurrence in the Mallee!), We were told that a little rain around late October will see record harvests.
Pickles.

[ramblingboy42]

I hope it does, everyone needs it.

[DiscoMick]

Clouds offshore but predicted rain failed to appear overnight.

[scarry]

These are pics from the property,just east of Dirranbandi.
Just thought i would throw up these pics to show what this drought is like.
The Warwick area is similar.
Just a dust bowl.


This was a grassy paddock,a few years ago.
Hundreds of dead roos around.There is nothing around to eat them,they just dry out.

https://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/16187526/640/16187526.jpg (https://picturepush.com/public/16187526)

This pic is whats left of the grassy area around the homestead and caretakers residence,which is in the background.

https://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/16187527/640/16187527.jpg (https://picturepush.com/public/16187527)

Same area as above pic,this one includes the shearers quarters,meat house,etc,which are to the west or right of the other pic above this one.

https://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/16187529/640/16187529.jpg (https://picturepush.com/public/16187529)

The trees look green,but they are dropping leaves and under immense stress.Many of the huge coolabahs, around the now dry dams, are dead or dying.

And they recon there is going to be a dry Spring and Summer.[bigsad]

[Eevo]

there is a reason aust is called the driest continent.

[1950landy]

I was up at Ipswich on Tuesday & drove over the Bremer River or what is left of it , there are islands in it, I have never seen it so in the 69 years of my life. My grand parents house was across the road beside the the bridge , the house was built on the foundations of the 1st brewery in Qld , the cellarwas built with sand stone blocks cut by convicts. Up untill 74 when the river flooded whe water came up to the floor boards , in 74 the water was 6ft over the peak of the roof. I cann remember as a boy going fishing with my grand dad off the jetty , I think about now all you would catch would be mud skippres.

[JDNSW]

there is a reason aust is called the driest continent.

It isn't, actually - Antarctica is!

[Eevo]

It isn't, actually - Antarctica is!

there are 5 continents and Antarctica isnt one of them.

[16PMark]

[emoji6][emoji6]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190823/60a5564fcaab6c90481d39ed22de4921.jpg

[JDNSW]

there are 5 continents and Antarctica isnt one of them.

"Antarctica is Earth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth)'s southernmost continent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent)." Courtesy Wikipedia. other sources would agree.

[Eevo]

looks like my schooling or memory has failed me.


my point remains however. we are a very dry continent.

[JDNSW]

Yes, but Antarctica is far drier. (I should note that I have just finished editing a book on Antarctica, so my memory is refreshed!)

[SBD4]

I think is would be fair to say the point being made is not whether or not Australia is a dry continent but rather that it seems much drier than it has been previously.

[Saitch]

I think is would be fair to say the point being made is not whether or not Australia is a dry continent but rather that it seems much drier than it has been previously.

The thing is, you have to define "Previously". Whatever records there are must be considered recent in the big scheme.
I think what Eevo and more so, Discomick, are alluding to is the fact that, for the last/first 231 years since the 1st Fleet arrival, most people in Oz have been trying to create a European styled economy i.e. sheep, cattle and various crops, in a significantly non-Euro climate.

[350RRC]

The thing is, you have to define "Previously". Whatever records there are must be considered recent in the big scheme.
I think what Eevo and more so, Discomick, are alluding to is the fact that, for the last/first 231 years since the 1st Fleet arrival, most people in Oz have been trying to create a European styled economy i.e. sheep, cattle and various crops, in a significantly non-Euro climate.


Exactly.

From memory NZ is closer to being the real antipodes to GB and really does have a similar climate.

Eevo............. please feel free to add the other similarities.

DL

[Bigbjorn]

Exactly.

From memory NZ is closer to being the real antipodes to GB and really does have a similar climate.

Eevo............. please feel free to add the other similarities.

DL

We used to refer to Kiwis as South Seas Poms.

[Old Farang]

We used to refer to Kiwis as South Seas Poms.
My charming mate, that sports a moustache bigger than his ego, calls them: Snap Frozen Poms. Sorry. [bighmmm]

[1984V8110]

I think is would be fair to say the point being made is not whether or not Australia is a dry continent but rather that it seems much drier than it has been previously.

I'm not convinced it is correct to say that Australia is drier than previously. We don't have the data for 2019 yet, but 2018, for which data are available, was the 39'th driest since 1900 (Annual climate statement 2018 (http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/#tabs=Rainfall)). The BOM link shows annual rainfall trends, and there is no evidence that rainfall is decreasing.

Where we do have a problem is that the number of people in Australia keeps goes up, largely driven by immigration, so even if rainfall is on average constant (as I think the evidence shows) the per capita availability of water, sourced from rainfall, is decreasing.

[SBD4]

The thing is, you have to define "Previously". Whatever records there are must be considered recent in the big scheme.
I think what Eevo and more so, Discomick, are alluding to is the fact that, for the last/first 231 years since the 1st Fleet arrival, most people in Oz have been trying to create a European styled economy i.e. sheep, cattle and various crops, in a significantly non-Euro climate.

Sorry, I didn't pick up on that...and if that's what they are saying then yes I agree and, yes "previously" is very recent.


I'm not convinced it is correct to say that Australia is drier than previously. We don't have the data for 2019 yet, but 2018, for which data are available, was the 39'th driest since 1900 (Annual climate statement 2018 (http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/#tabs=Rainfall)). The BOM link shows annual rainfall trends, and there is no evidence that rainfall is decreasing.

Where we do have a problem is that the number of people in Australia keeps goes up, largely driven by immigration, so even if rainfall is on average constant (as I think the evidence shows) the per capita availability of water, sourced from rainfall, is decreasing.

I agree with the last part of your statement though, how much rain falls out of the sky is only part of the equation, where it falls and how quickly along with how hot it is determines how much of it gets into and stays in the ground therefore how dry it is.

Naturally, there'll always be parts of the country getting good rain when others are getting none.

PS I knew I would regret posting such a generalised statement.[wink11]

[JDNSW]

The other issue is that while the country as a whole may not be getting drier, some parts do appear to be, compensated for by the fact that other parts are getting wetter. Problem is, the parts that are getting less rain are parts that already had less, and the parts with more rain had plenty anyway.

Compounding this is the fact that the increased temperatures, especially when coupled with low humidity and strong wins such as we had here in the first few months of the year, mean that we are drier than would have been expected for the same rainfall deficit a few decades ago.

And confounding all of this is that to really see climate trends, we need much longer data sets - Australia as a whole has only had reasonable data going back a little over a century, if that. We really need a couple of hundred years of data to confirm long term trends.

[Eevo]

Yes, but Antarctica is far drier.

probably why they dont have much agriculture down there.


if the drought is getting worse or aust is getting drier, instead if complaining, maybe we should be moving to farming methods that are more suited to our dry climate.

[scarry]

if the drought is getting worse or aust is getting drier, instead if complaining, maybe we should be moving to farming methods that are more suited to our dry climate.

That is what we are doing,what else can we do?

We have records going back to the 1920's for the property.The last 5 yrs has been worse than anything on those records.

There has never not been good or reasonable summer rains,apart from a couple of years around 1965.

Winter storms were aways quite common,they haven't occurred for the last few years either.

Could be a cycle,who knows.

Its definitely patchy,areas 120Km north west have had reasonable rain,in fact some properties have had good rain.

Goondiwindi isnt too bad either,but Warwick,Stanthorpe, is very bad.

We just have to work with what we have.

Hopefully we will get rain soon,but not floods.

They are predicting a very dry Spring and Summer,but thats probably a good guess.

[Saitch]

And confounding all of this is that to really see climate trends, we need much longer data sets - Australia as a whole has only had reasonable data going back a little over a century, if that. We really need a couple of hundred years of data to confirm long term trends.

I vaguely remember, 20 years ago perhaps, a TV report on an Australian scientist carrying out drought research by studying coral.
She stated that there is a correlation between the condition and number of rings a cut piece of coral has to the amount of rain over a certain period. These rings are similar to the growth rings of a tree trunk.
I'm sure she said some of the droughts of yore were around 30-40 years duration.

Also, there was something more recent about ice core drilling in Antarctica, which shows that there was a drought from 1100AD to 1200AD, although I'm not sure of the accuracy of this report as I can't remember how I found it.

[JDNSW]

Yes, you can get information on past climate from a variety of sources, including trees, coral, ice cores, seafloor sediments etc. But these do not give daily rainfall measurements for the entire continent, although they can give clues.

[DiscoMick]

This seems like a useful summary.
Climate change in Australia - Wikipedia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_Australia)

I guess one point is there have always been huge regional variations.
Another point is we have warmed by one degree in a century.
We certainly do need to do better at adapting to our climate, which is very different to Europe's.
Some ideas for adapting agriculture are here, but there are also other possibilities.
Department of Agriculture


Adapting to a changing climate (http://www.agriculture.gov.au/ag-farm-food/climatechange/australias-farming-future/adapting-to-a-changing-climate)

[ramblingboy42]

Well, the channel country looks fantastic at the moment, there are wet creeks , waterways and waterholes as far as you can see. The Cooper Basin is just alive at the moment.

Conversely I dont think I have seen Kati Thanda South looking so brown and dry.

As someone else said all the western rivers are dead, and some may not recover.

I just came back from my trip into SA deserts and hardly saw a roo or an emu or a dingo , very little bird life.

Many road gangs are doing minimal work other than a light grade as there is no water , so we may see degradation of many outback roads.

Dust is hanging making road visibility quite bad. At one stage I actually had to stop while travelling behind a road train as I became spatially disorientated.

Might be interesting next year if no rain.

My cattle station friends as a group....The Williams Cattle Company.... are holding on but they are lucky enough to own a farm...Carrieton....on the edge of the Flinders and they are able to use their own trucks to take feed up for the cattle, their calves still look good , but that's because of best practise management.