PRECEDE
Noosa’s octogenarian rainman and record keeper JIM KENNEDY looks at the local picture on a very dry first half year.
By the end of June last year, we’d had two major flood events, rainfall of 1902mm and 87 wet days, against average year to date figures of 1003mm and 67 wet days.
In fact, we had exceeded our annual rainfall average of 1557mm by 22 per cent and wet days by 26 per cent. So, it’s fair to say it was a wet and miserable six months. Even the second half of last year, the rainfall was on average.
La Nina was in full swing. Then someone turned off the tap, its name being El Nino. El Nino is now totally in control. In January 2023 we had a miserable 59mm or 42per cent of the average, and it has continued at 40 per cent to 50 per cent of the monthly average for the other five months. By the end of June last week, we’ve had a paltry 517mm or 48 per cent of our YTD average.
The figure that is hardest to digest is that we’ve only had 27 per cent of the rain we had to the same time last year. We are really living up to our title of “Sunshine State” with rain falling on only 53 days against the average of 67 days.
I hope these figures explain why your garden is so dry and the level in your tanks is only going one way — down.
What’s the rest of the year look like? I would have to say dry, dry, and drier. El Nino is totally in control with other indices ensuring its strength till at least the end of this year. To make matters worse, the second half of the year normally only represents about 35 per cent of our annual rainfall. Together with El Nino, this obviously means we are going to be in for an extremely dry six months if our rainfall continues at 40 to 50 per cent of our average.
So folks, put away your raincoats and wet weather gear, just keep an umbrella handy for the odd shower.
