Crikey it’s wet

[willedoo]

Some nice soaking rain here the last couple of days, 60mm so far. A mate further north at Hervey Bay has had around 175mm. January was dry, only 17 mm for the month. Usually in January here you expect 6 to 10 inches but it varies a lot. One of the wettest Januarys was 2011 with 644mm, driest was 2001 with zero rain. Usually here if the first three months are dry (they should be our wettest), it will be followed up by a wet autumn and possibly into winter.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Don't talk to me about being wet! OK, we haven't had the floods that Aus got over the last few years, but crikey, we have had over 40 odd days of continuous rainy days (not always raining, but for a decent part of each day) and grey, grey, grey. Yesterday was a sunny day for most of it. I think everyone got sunstroke they were so unacclimatised to seeing any sun. And it only hit 6 degrees. 

 

Today; back to the rain.. 

 

 

[willedoo]

I spent 3 months in the U.K. in 1985, mainly in London. I was there July, August and September and it was beautiful warm sunny weather. I left the first week of November and the last three or four days there had cooled down to the point of wearing a coat. But before that it was three months of T shirt weather. The locals called it an Indian summer and said it would happen only about every 20 years, so I've been there but never experienced the cold rainy weather they often get.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Those Indian summers are far more frequent these days. But even when the summers haven';t been the best, the days are long with sunset going past 10pm, and sunrise a little after 4am. Combined with a more relaxed approach to drinking (at least where I lived in London and where I live in the South West), made loverly long but relaxing summer days, often watching them attempt to play cricket. 

 

Happy days!

[old man emu]

Good luck to you blokes who have had rain. It looks like my area is set for a drought this year.

[onetrack]

I spent 6 weeks living in the U.K. (based at Reading), and toured Scotland as well, from mid-August to the end of September 1988. The weather was remarkably pleasant all the time that I was there - days around 16°C to 18°C maximum, and minimums around 10°C to 12°C - and virtually no rain! It was nothing like I expected.

[Jerry_Atrick]

4 hours ago, old man emu said:

Good luck to you blokes who have had rain. It looks like my area is set for a drought this year.

It's incredible  and you would not believe it, but we can have all this rain and still technically be in "drought". First, we have been, in relative terms, quite dry for around 18 months. Our underground resevoirs may not fill up (technically, may have enough leaks to lose a lot). For some reason, since I have been int he UK, there has been at least 3 hosepipe bans due to lack of water I can think of, and they were all after a decent spell of rain.

 

Dare I say, privitasation at its best. 

 

 

 

 

[facthunter]

Prefer if you said Privatisation but such things being ESSENTIAL should be more subject to scrutiny as you usually have a Monopoly with No other choice.  Nev

[Litespeed]

You can thank the finacial enginners at Macquarie bank for your essential services been essentially stuffed.

[onetrack]

On the grain season side in W.A., the farming community has just produced the biggest-ever grain crop to come out of W.A. It was truly a bumper season - 27.35M tonnes of grains in total, surpassing the former record-breaking 25M tonnes in 2022. That's 4 out of the last 5 years that have been bumper grain seasons for W.A. farmers. The taxman will be rubbing his hands!

 

Surprisingly to me, barley was the biggest crop winner this season just gone. A far bigger area cropped to barley than normal, and high yields for the 2025/26 season, made barley the standout for this years grains.

 

https://www.giwa.org.au/wa-crop-reports/2025-season/giwa-crop-report-february-2026/

[red750]

Crikey it's HOT

 

34° Tomorrow, 40° next Sunday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[old man emu]

This has been what the rainfall prediction image has been for a few days. Notice the bare patch in the centre of NSW. That's where I live. Everyone is getting more rain than they want except me. 

 

[onetrack]

OME, your turn will come! When it does - don't come back to us, crying, "please make it stop raining!" 😄 

[facthunter]

OME is in a good Place to Miss out on rain from all directions.  Nev

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, onetrack said:

OME, your turn will come! When it does - don't come back to us, crying, "please make it stop raining!" 😄 

The only thing that I will no like if the rains come in strength is that I won't be able to dry my laundry. There hasn't been any decent general rain here since last April. Several small yards around my house are devoid of vegetation. My sister is hand feeding a couple of horses that she is keeping arded up because of founder in their feet. 

 

Fortunately I have access to bore water for domestic use and tankwater for drinking, but the fact that there hasn't been worthwhile rain for so long, coupled with this Summer's extreme heat and constant strong winds plays havoc with one's mental state.

[onetrack]

Yes, an extended drought can be quite depressing. Even more so, when your income relies on reliable rains. But we live in country that regularly sees extended drought periods, and then often followed by excessive amounts of rain. The people in the Gulf and the SE parts of the NT are probably looking forward to that long-awaited rain finally stopping.

[facthunter]

Bore water doesn't Lather with soap very well. Nev

[old man emu]

The bore water at my place must be very low in minerals. It does not leave crusts on the end of taps and seems to lather satisfactoritly. It may not actually be bore water, but just creek water since the bore is not too far from a major creek.

[pmccarthy]

We are promised 100-150mm over the next three days. Could be interesting.

[Jerry_Atrick]

20 hours ago, old man emu said:

This has been what the rainfall prediction image has been for a few days. Notice the bare patch in the centre of NSW. That's where I live. Everyone is getting more rain than they want except me. 

 

There is a young lady who works in the pub at Butterleigh, not far from Exeter University, where my daughter goes. She is from Warren, about an hour west of you, OME. Butterliegh is a village that in UK terms, is not remote, but distant. I was suprised to see any Aussie working there as it isn't in a major centre,  let alone someone from Warren. I aksed her what she thought of the UK? It was just before Christmas and her response was, "it is bloody wet.."..

 

I guess they get as much rain as you do, as at that pointl it was a reasonably dry start to winter.

 

Edited 2 hours ago by Jerry_Atrick

[pmccarthy]

Despite forecasts, not a drop here yet.

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

She is from Warren, about an hour west of you, OME

I live on the highway that runs to Warren. From my front gate it is about 70 kms away. Warren is on the Macquaie River. Although the Macquarie River doesn't have the deep gouge in the landscape that we associate with a "valley", the rain clouds seem to follow its course and that means it diverts away from my place.

 

I drove into Dubbo yesterday for shopping. Dubbo is about 60 kms south from Gilgandra.  As I got to about 20 kms from Dubbo I noticed that the paddocks were greening up. About 25 kms south of Gilgandra there seems to be a boundary between the catchments of the Macquarie and Castlereagh Rivers. This seems to split the path of storms. The radar often shows the storm cells tracking to the south of this divide,  so the storms avoid the Castlereagh catchment. 

 

Since farming around here involves the growing of winter grain crops, most of the ground cover in summer is just dried standing straw. About the only greenery is the grass at the edge of the road that has been watered by the run off from small storms.