Thread: Are you all ready for the next drought?

I heard on ABC Radio today that all NSW water storage dams have increased their holding due to good winter rainfall this year, an overall average of 3%.

I grow garlic for various reasons, only a couple of hundred thousand bulbs, but I do have an interest in rainfall for that and other pursuits.

The BOM have a nationwide rainfall update site that has all sorts of options. The most useful to me is the percentage of monthly average that can be viewed nationally or by state, with other options like anomalies or deciles.

Kicks off at the start of each month and gradually accumulates until the end of the month then resets.

Where I am the monthly total was over 100% of the average about 4 days before the end of the July. It rained a bit in the last few days of the month.

On the 2nd of August I looked at the last month's graphic for Vic (July) and the whole map appeared to have been 'standardised' down by 20%.

Got me stuffed how a monthly running total can be altered after the fact.

cheers, DL

We ran out of water in the main tank at the house in Maleny at the weekend and had to get a tanker in (13,000 litres for $190).
Maleny is 415 metres above sea level, so if its dry up there, it's dry everywhere. The tanker driver said he is flat out filling orders, as is his mate with another tanker.

New Hobart temperature record forecast as dry conditions prompt early start to fire permit period - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)


They tell me Vic. will be using their desal plant for the first time in anger this summer.

Yep, we're already in the drought - just drive west of the range to see it, there are destocked properties everywhere.
Thanks to climate change, droughts are going to keep getting worse as the desert marches towards the coast, ruining farmers as it spreads.