Queensland maybe experiencing the worst floods in history while extreme heat and dry conditions have brought serious bushfires to Tasmania, Victoria and parts of New South Wales.
It was touch and go here in the Hartley Valley with fires in the Lithgow region, at Doctors Gap and further north close to Cullen Bullen, and south & east in the Blue Mountains National Park, but the rain we received just after celebrating Australia Day was the welcome relief we’d all been praying for! Since the Bureau of Meteorology doesn’t collect data from anywhere closer to the Valley than Mt Boyce, Mt Clarence, Lithgow and Duddawarra we either have to guess the local rainfall or rely on our own gauges.
Mid Hartley received 51mm by 9 am on Sunday 27th January, a further 2 mm to 9 am Monday 28th, followed by 53.5 mm by 9 am Tuesday 29th. It was all steady, gentle to moderate falls which soaked right into the ground. None left over to run into dams, but trees that were brown-leaved and dying are now sprouting new green shoots and land that was brown and dead has a cover of fresh green grass sprouting. The miracle of Life returns yet again!
Added to the 8.5 mm that had grudgingly fallen in those extremely hot twenty-six days prior to ex-tropical cyclone Oswald’s gifts, Mid Hartley received 115 mm for January – a great turn around in fortune!
And there’s more to look forward to on Friday 1st February if the BOM is correct!
We’ve had about 112 mm here in Little Hartley, mostly over the past week, AND our dam level has come up quite a bit! Tank also filling up nicely.
Fingers crossed for Friday!