"Chookie" wrote in message
"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote:

????? How is this relevant? The article is from 2002!!!!!!! and
the
so called "prediction" for a decent rainfall in southern Australia
the
following year was way off the mark! We're into our SIXTH year of
drought now with rainfalls consistently at least a third lower
than
they should be.

I have a question. What *is* the rainfall that you should have? At
what
point do we call it drought? Isn't drought just the rough end of
the
pineapple of variance, and something we should expect and allow for?
I am
just wondering about our averages, and whether in fact there are
many years
where rainfall is near-average (either in your area or mine). Could
it be
that in some places we get either wet or drought years, without too
many in
the middle?

Just very qucikly as I have to go and do somethign about dinner. I
think you need to consider trends and variations from the averages.
For example the trend has been for lower rainfall in many parts in Aus
for at least a 30 year period - SW WA is one area where the trend has
been downward in that time. Averages are just that over the lifetime
of rainfall records and we cna be up or down from that in any one
year.

What seems to be happening here is that the rainfall is falling in a
different way - eg big drops alla t one rather than over a longer
term.

sorry this is garbled I know and I'll have to think about it and
correct later on.

Sydney is having another dry summer but it is not as dry as last
year IMO.
The BOM don't have the Dec rainfall figures out yet, but I am
guessing they
are only a bit below average. Temps seem lower too, and it is more
humid
(though not actually *high* humidity; it's been about 50% this
week). Wonder
how many scorchers we'll get this February?

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim
jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and
wrinkled."
Kerry Cue