Hi Tom,
I am from Australia, not a member of the Ridecamp
list but I do enjoy reading it and what is happening endurance wise in the
USA.
I live in far north eastern NSW in the sub
tropical mountains. We are having a very dry year and we did not get a wet
season at all in FEB/MAR/APR when we are supposed to get it. One old
timer who is pushing 70 years and was born here said he has never seen the
local creek dry up in his life until this year. We live in the mountains surrounded by RAINforest and so our creek is
right at the source and should always flow but the water just dried up and
went underground this summer gone. We are now in our mid winter and it is
normal for it to be dry now ....which it is. The water came back in the creek
in May when we got a little rain. We are having a green drought... barely
enough rain to keep some grass growing but not enough to replenish the ground
water ...the summer will be hell if we don't get some spring rain.
The weather hasn't been normal here where I live
since 1989....you could once set your clock by the summer wet season when we
would always get big floods to replenish the ground water then a dry
winter/spring. We had a decent flood in 2001 but no real ones in between and
no rain at all this year. Some years in the mid 90's we had wet soggy
winters when it was supposed to be dry. Its like the normal cycle has gone all
confused.
at the moment much of SE Queensland is very
dry and Hay is very expensive and getting scarce. I believe some places in
Victoria have had too much rain and Western Australia was drought stricken
last year but I believe they had some rain to relieve the situation, however I
don't know what is normal for these states. I do know that when we were
supposed to get the rain they were getting it out west instead ....sort of
back to front this year.
Eastern Australia had a very hot summer in
general with weird westerly winds (they are supposed to be northerly
in summer and westerly in winter) and we had some massive fires around
Sydney because of it....it was declared a disaster area.
Well I hope this helps. Nothing scientific just
some general observations from my local area abroad downunder ! Feel free
to ask any questions and I will endeaver to answer them.
Regards
Rachael
