Of course it was probably my imagination, I can't find the specific reference anywhere, but I'm sure I saw, in Ballarat's The Courier, a mention of Western Victoria and Drought.
Not "rainfall deficiency" / not "dry" but actual drought. They used the word. I was so shocked and surprised I forgot to bookmark the report. Not shocked about the drought bit - we're living it. Profoundly shocked that somebody in Melbourne had dragged out an atlas and a compass and figured out there was a "west" in Victoria. I guess it's possible somebody got lost on a driving holiday to Gippsland but even then, it's a big detour and it must have come as a hell of a surprise for most people to discover a) there is Western Victoria; and b) it's a bloody big area. Imagine how amazed they are going to be if they find out how much of their grain comes from out here.
But looking at:
The seasonal bushfire outlook is suggesting we're all gonna die.
No. Shit. Sherlock.
We're going into this summer with a yearly rainfall of 492.6mls (up to November). That's, what, slightly more than half of 2023 when we got 805.9mls. Which was around 2/3rds of 2022, which was around 2/3rds of 2021 and on it goes. The hassle with those last few years was also that what we got tended to come in massive downpours which caused flooding, washed out fences and chaos. And little of it into tanks or dams.
So we find the idea of "average yearly rainfall figures" a great steaming pile of bullshit - unless they are spreading it over 50 years - in which case we might pay attention.
But we've been buying in water for animals now for so many years I can't remember when it started (and trust me - that's unbelievably expensive compared to what city people pay in water rates - it's eye-wateringly (if we had any) expensive). We've managed to avoid house water buy ins so far, mostly by not using water in the house. We have shower's that are < 1 minute (we use a watersaver on the shower that means we can turn the water on and off with a paddle attachment). This year we've done that all year round, normally we give ourselves a couple of minutes under the shower in winter but not this year. Which was interesting because when it's as dry as this its also frosty and bloody freezing. But combine that with minimal laundry (god I laughed at somebody on the radio a while ago suggesting it wasn't hygienic to not wash pillowslips every day... I mean ffs!), and minimal everything else and we sort of stagger through most years. Which is a hassle because the main aircon is evaporative so we cook frequently overnight because of the complicated use case required to justify turning it on. We've also had some help from the conditions and the gardens and orchards are pretty well gone now.
But this year you can really see the carnage. We've got dead gumtrees all around - not just in the bush but on the property and road verges. There was a tiny bit of grass growth when we had the single down pour we've had this year but that's dried off and we've been walking through crackling dry grass, dry gum leaves and dust for months now. And the dust is getting worse - even startled ourselves recently driving home - dust storm that looked for all the world like a smoke showing until we stopped worrying, and had a good look (could everyone driving down highways right now do the same thing - dust is brown / smoke is white or black, dust tends to move behind whatever is throwing it into the air / smoke doesn't do 100ks - immediately / granted it can if the wind is blowing). Which it's looking like it's going to do all summer - god we've had some wind and heat already, and today and this weekend we're nudging 40 already.
Wonderful.
Needless to say it's going to be a shit of a summer, after an absolute shit of a year.
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