Australia's Bureau of Meteorology forecast that we'd have a wet summer this year after the terrible drought of 2019. Armidale usually gets around 755.6 mm (29 inches) of rain per annum, but the 2019 figure was massively below at 306.6 mm (just 12 inches). No wonder we had heaps of bushfires destroying native vegetation and wildlife. Things turned around as we moved into 2020, especially towards the end of that year, and we recorded 973 mm (around 39 inches). That was the second highest annual figure in 22 years after the lowest recorded for that period the previous year! It was quite a good turnaround.
So we started 2021 with high hopes of a verdant landscape and removal of all water restrictions, only to see disastrous rainfall in January. That is usually one of the wettest of months, averaging around 88 mm or well over 3 inches. To our horror, rainfall was well below average at only 34 mm (the second lowest in 23 years) and our garden was struggling with lack of water. February also lagged in rainfall for much of the month and we were getting edgy about keeping plants growing. But something remarkable happened in the the 4-day period February 24th to 27th. During the first 23 days of the month we recorded just 45 mm - or getting on for 2 inches, but then it started to pour and during those 4 days we received another 100.6 mm (or 4 inches). So instead of lagging monthly averages we soared to 145+ mm - c. 50% above the monthly average around 95.2 mm. This total is the 5th highest in the last 23 years. The picture below shows our garden's rain gauge with water at the 100 mm level for the first time ever ... but because I refused to empty it daily as usual. You can't read the numbers on the gauge, but please trust me that I'm right!
After heavy rain, Dumaresq Creek, which flows through the middle of our town, often floods quickly and, on this occasion, delivered the highest level and expanse of water I can recall in many years. Have a look at these pictures of our creeklands. Driving these high water levels was the dumping of no less than 31 mm in about 4 hours on the morning of Saturday 23rd February. That's well over 1 inch, or a daily rate of about 7 inches!
The one thing missing from these photos is the hundreds of Corellas that have invaded our town. These large white members of the parrot family carpet the creeklands daily looking for food, but I guess it didn't hurt them to go a diet!
AS
