Very hot and very dry.

[alchemysa]

I am always so envious when I see your pictures. Everything is sooooo green!

Here in Adelaide we've just had our longest ever heat wave. 15 days between about 96 and 104 degrees. Outback towns have had it hotter for longer but this is the longest ever hot stretch for an Australian capital city. And incredibly this has occured in Autumn! (Our summer 'officially' finished at the and of Feb).

But worse than the heat is the lack of water. Total rainfall last year was 18 inches , and I dont think weve had anything this year. We've had restrictions for a couple of years now. Only 3 hours watering each sunday allowed, and only with a hand held hose - no sprinklers. On a half acre block that doesn't go far. And we are away every second weekend so our 'garden' only gets about 3 hours a fortnight. The best we can do is just try and keep the trees alive. The pics below give you some idea what it looks like now compared to what it looked like a couple of years ago. It takes a lot to kill 'agapanthus'.

Fortunately we have a getaway place 300ks away with cooler temps, bore water, and slightly better rainfall but its depressing to see 15 years of gardening go to ruin in the home where we spend most of our time.

 

[mikim]

That's tough .... and even trailering a water tank back from the country would do about as good as peeing on it. .... you couldn't carry enough to make a big difference.

 

[orezok]

...but worse than the heat is the lack of water. Total rainfall last year was 18 inches , and I dont think weve had anything this year.

I can sympathize with you. Here in the Mojave the total rain for the previous 2 years was less than 2" total. This year is a little wetter with about 4" so far. The good thing is that we sit on one of the larges aquifers around. An unbelieveable amount of water, that has placed first and second in the world water taste contest held in Europe (in the past 6 years).

The bad part is that it's 500' to 600' down!

 

[Bird]

It certainly was pretty when it was green. And in Texas, we understand about droughts. What does the dog in the 2nd picture have in its mouth? The remains of a soccer ball?

 

[jinman]

When looking at a map of Adelaide, it seems to me that there are not many fresh water lakes about. A similar map of our N. Texas area is covered with lakes. Is there no real attempt to conserve ground water there in SA? Is that because of the normal rainfall and the close proximity to the ocean? Just curious?

 

[Unclebuck257]

alchemysa,

I take it two of those pics are of your get away place with all that green in the garden area. Sorry about the drought at home place because we here in N.Texas can certainly relate to the problems one causes, in many ways.

 

[jimg]

We did the exceptional drought/hi temps thing last summer and I can certainly empathize w/ your situation. IIRC Aus has been in a drought pattern for some time now...or perhaps Im disremembering. Maybe Im thinking of SA.

 

[alchemysa]

Bird. Yep that WAS a soccer ball. That dog destroys any ball in about 30 seconds.

Unclebuck. No those green pics are what the dead area used to look like.

Orezok. Right across the middle of Australia we have water like that too. Not as pure as yours, I think its only suitable for cattle, but its just as deep. In the south east of our state, where we have our getaway place the water is only about 5' down (even in summer) and its almost drinkable. But the local farmers are sucking too much out. It can't support too many pumps doing 30,000 gallons an hour!

JimG. Theres always a drought somewhere in Australia. (I'm not a farmer so I guess i've got it easy). North-east parts of the country are getting big rains right now.

Jim. By 'ground water' I assume you mean retained rain water. Well basically we have no natural lakes or ground water here. Adelaide, on the mid south coast of the state, is one of the 'wetter' places but we only had 18 inches last year and most of the rest of the state had even less. I think we only had about 10 inches the previous year. This state (South Australia) is larger than Texas (380,000 sq miles compared to 270,000 square miles) but I think I'm right in saying you can drive east/west in a straight line across this state without crossing water. And you can travel north/south and only cross one river. Imagine that... driving about 2000 miles without crossing a bridge. We have only one permanent river. It flows into the south east corner from the eastern states. In the old days even that would have dried out in summer, but now its kept half full with a series of locks. That river is in big trouble now too because too much is sucked out for irrigation. In fact it virtually doesn't reach the sea anymore. The mouth has just about silted up.

We have a very high evaporation rate here so any rain we do get dries very fast. Rain water tanks and city reservoirs are the only way to save it for any length of time. Various maps, and Google Earth, will show what looks like some large lakes in the middle of the state but those are actually massive, usually dry, salt pans. They get a few inches in them every couple of years but dry out pretty quickly.

It sounds miserable doesn't it? But its not actually. When it rains its beautiful. It doesn't take much water to send it green. And most of us live close to the coast so we normally get rain in winter. Typical mid-winter daytime temp is probably about 60 degrees although it can get colder. And its not overcrowded. Total state population is about 1.4 million. (Texas is about 24 mill. I think.).

I'm always amazed when i look at maps of the US. You seem to have rivers and lakes everywhere - even in the middle of the country - and large towns and cities everywhere. In contrast, about 90% of Australia's population lives within about 100 ks of the coast. Hard to imagine how two countries of similar size can be so different. I envy your rainfall but not your population. Way too crowded for me!

 

[Pushing_Tin]

The USA really does have some amazingly beautiful scenery, and diversity! I live in Oregon and feel lucky every day! I'd love to visit Australia one day though.

 

[jinman]

Jim. By 'ground water' I assume you mean retained rain water. Well basically we have no natural lakes or ground water here.

You are right. I should have said rain runoff. I don't know why I said, "...ground water."

In Texas, there is only one natural lake, Caddo Lake. All the others are man-made. One of the bigger lakes in this area, Ray Roberts Lake, didn't even exist until a few years ago. We are constantly building lakes to conserve runoff and have water for our growing population. I guess that's one of the benefits of higher population density. Many of these lakes are funded primarily with federal money and maintained by the Army Corp of Engineers. The little 15 acre lake I live on was built in 1941 as a soil conservation lake. I'm a little surprised to not see a larger density of lakes in SA. Perhaps the topography does not lend itself to the lakes we have here.

I sure hope your rain returns soon. The difference in your pictures is dramatic. Do you not have issues with grass fires there? I know they can burn off great regions of grass in some areas of Australia.

 

[alchemysa]

Jim. Our topography and climate in most of the state doesnt really suit the construction of large man made lakes. Much of the state is pretty flat with an average rainfall of about 8". Any rain is just going to soak into the parched ground or evaporate before you can use it. And as you said we just don't have the population to pay for major projects. Farmers of course do what ever they can to retain water in their own small dams.

But here in Adelaide I have to certainly admit that our politicians and public servants have been asleep at the wheel. We havent had a major dam built for about 30 years and now we are paying the price. Around Adelaide I'm sure we have the hills and the rainfall (normally) to make more major dams a viable option. But, instead, they want to spend 300 million bucks on a desalination plant, a ridiculous idea in my opinion, but the water authorities love the idea of course because then they can ratchet up the water prices and really screw us even in the middle of winter.

But someone is always worse off than us...

"The all-time national heatwave record was set in Marble Bar in northern Western Australia, which had 160 consecutive days at or above 37.8 degrees celsius (or 100 degrees fahrenheit) in the summer of 1923-24."

 

[ByronBob]

The USA really does have some amazingly beautiful scenery, and diversity! I live in Oregon and feel lucky every day! I'd love to visit Australia one day though.

Too bad all the water you show there is 45 degrees all year long. You can't swim in any of it.

 

[Pushing_Tin]

^^ Of course the water is cold, look how far north we are! There are still quite a few people that kayak, surf, swim and scuba dive in the chilly water.

 

[BB_TX]

alchemysa - We had a near record drought here in north Texas in 2006 with local lakes at record low levels and water restrictions. Then last year we had near record rains with all lakes to the flood stage damaging most of the lakes' recreational facilities. I don't hope you get that kind of rain, but maybe it will turn around like ours did.
As an old time local weatherman (rest his soul) used to say, "normal is simply the average of the extremes".

 

[alchemysa]

alchemysa - but maybe it will turn around like ours did.
As an old time local weatherman (rest his soul) used to say, "normal is simply the average of the extremes".

Maybe, but I don't think so. We've never had rain like that!. But I'll let you know.

Speaking of averages. Our average for the first half of the month was 10C above normal. It was about 38C instead of 28C. (Or about 100F instead of 80F.) When you live in those temperatures theres a heck of a difference between the average and the reality.
It will be interesting to see what the rest of the month brings. If its normal or cool it will bring the average right down. In the future they may look back at this month and say "Nothing unusual. It was just few degrees above normal". I find that weathermen are great ones for looking at averages but missing the real picture. I think they must spend too much time in their air-conditioned offices.