We’ve been experiencing a great deal of hot, dry weather of late.
After three years of excellent to slightly excessive rainfall, since July it’s felt like the tap was suddenly turned off.
It was therefore surprising to look at my Rainfall chart for 2012 to discover that the total rainfall for the year in my part of the Valley (Mid Hartley) at 829.5 mm (33 inches) is only 65.5 mm below the so-called Long Term Mean of 895 mm (Just under 36 inches p/a)!
The previous year, that seemed to be permanently wet, gave us “only” 789 mmm (31.5 inches). This summer established trees are stressed, losing leaves, even dying!
The difference? The distribution of the rainfall! The rainfall of 2011 was reasonably evenly distributed except for a much dryer than average February (38 mm) but in 2012 we had a very wet autumn into winter followed by a much drier than average spring into summer.
I know that the rainfall is not uniform within the valley – and that storms bring widely varying amounts of rain depending on which part of the cloud one happens to be underneath when it lets go.
It would be interesting to compare the differences and anyone who keeps records and would like to contribute to the knowledge bank please send in your rainfall statistics!
So for Mid Hartley in 2012:
Jan 67 Feb 162.5 March 205.5 April 44.5 May 25 June 82 July 43.5 Aug 22.5 Sept 42 Oct 24 Nov 64 Dec 47
The so-called Average being:
Jan 143 Feb 120 March 72 April 40 May 45 June 50 July 30 Aug 75 Sept 65 Oct 85 Nov 75 Dec 95
I hope the rains return for the rest of summer. Water’s getting far too expensive to buy these days, and there’s no substitute for good, soaking rain!
Report by Diane Green
