jad n rich

The OP asked how bad the drought was, accordingly I answered the drought question and offered absolutely no opinon on where he should live.

jad n rich

I hope it does rain. However having seen parts of VIC NSW and QLD that are in drought I think we need one hell of a lot of rain. Plus take QLD, we are coming into the dry season, the wet seasons been and gone usually starts up again next november december.

MrsDagboy

**** the garden, windows & cars etc :curse: - in 6 months time we wont have any water to drink, let alone wash the car with.

Funny thing is, if no-one does anything about it they don't realise that is EXACTLY WHERE they will be directly drinking from - cos there wont be any water coming out of the taps!


I don't think she's saying anything of the sort - but to suggest that the crisis will be over if we get a bit of rain is deluding people. Here in Brisbane (or rather, in the dam catchment areas) we need serious rain in the region of 6-12 inches in a short space of time (like a week) for our crisis to be averted (no, not fixed, merely postponed!) & as Jad mentioned this is our dry season now, so the chances of that happening are close to zero.


I usually agree with you Sean, but in this case I cant. Some parts of Brisbane may have had 200mm in 3 months (which btw for anyone who doesnt know, are our wettest 3 months of the year & all together should average 460mm) but at our place we are nudging 4 months & we've had only had 170mm (average is 550 for the same period). That's less than one third of our average rainfall for that period. But the part that's the worst is that alot of it has been in little showers which are almost useless, 5mm here, 2 mm there, which is just enough to wet the roof & that's about all, hardly enough to cause any run off it & certainly not enough to put water in our dam either. We havent had a single drop at our place since the 6th March & only 70mm since Feb 1st (almost 3 months) .

Amen!

annqldau

It's not too bad we've been trying to follow the water saving advice so Hubby has just grabbed crate of beer so we don't have to drink any water today... .

Amazulu

Point taken.
There is talk of food rising 500%. So say you are paying $200/week for food, you will be paying $1000/week by the end of winter.
I don't think so. There would be near starvation and probably a depression.

Ain't going to happen.

cresta57

Yep not all areas have had that amount that's true, though the ones that have would still have had water going into their tanks, thus equaling less of a strain on the reticulated supply.
We've had very little up here for quite a number of weeks, hence the tanks being at half volume when usually at this time of year we'd have been taking baths and long showers knowing the tanks were overflowing.
Your right about it coming in dribs and drabs the last time our rain guage clocked 10mm or more was a couple of months back.

BadgeIsBack

"'Our'' draught is easing, 30mm a few weeks ago, 4mm this last hour.

Our new water tanks installed last week are being christened as we speak. Our slimline tank is catching about 3-5l a minute. I keep going out and watching the stream of water.

The grass has been green for a few weeks and I'm back to mowing again.

If this is part of the BoM prediction for autumnal rain,bring it on.

B

Wol

I tried to find a picture to post of an ostrich with its head in the sand - but couldn't find one which was free to copy.....

datamile

So is everyone metered ?

MrsDagboy

oh so true

louise4

this might be more apt anyway

InBetween

Take a look at the 'water issues' thread - this has started a debate on Desalination and whether is a good or bad thing, and no matter where you are living or heading in Australia, it will have affect on you in one way or another. It is a problem that the whole of Australia needs to confront, not just the dry areas.

Wol

I can remember reading back in the seventies that water would become the reason for conflict all over the world within 50 years.

esperanza

They didn't say that all food would rise by 500%, but that it could happen for produce from these regions. Imports will have to increase, which will probably negate the price rises a little.
I've heard the water tank theory too - apparently if all the Sydney households had tanks then there would not be a shortage there. Can't remember where I got that from though!
Where I am, in the Hunter Valley, it is hard to see any shortage - it's all over the papers, obviously, but when you look at the countryside it is beautiful and green, there are cattle & horses grazing in the fields, it's gorgeous. Makes me feel lucky to be here and not in a dustbowl somewhere. Having said that, there have been lots of times in the last week when OH or I have seen something and raised eyebrows - there are still a lot of green lawns around, sprinklers, car washes, etc. Makes me think if there really is this big shortage (which seems undeniable) then how come all this water is being used unnecessarily? Are water shortages something that affect only some regions whilst other regions aren't really suffering?

MrsDagboy

It's definitey pretty dry that's for sure & I agree that it would take part of the strain off the system, but IMO it's a bit too little too late. Someone mentioned that the gov is now considering giving rainwater tanks out free instead of having to go through the palava of buying one, getting it installed & claiming the money back as a rebate (which anyone who has done it knows isnt a speedy process) - why the hell didnt they do that 12 months or 2 years ago??? Then it may have actually made a difference instead of waiting until the horse has bolted to close the stable door :curse: , there are thousands & thousands of people out there who would never be able to afford to pay for a tank outright, so why not help them help everyone by making the process easier? And why not have made installing water tanks & other ideas mandatory in new builds years & years ago - my biggest gripe with tanks has always been that if Joe Blow down the road installs a tank & hasnt got a clue what he's doing with it, the chances of problems ie health problems from water not being clean, using it incorrectly etc are huge but if it was installed properly to start with in new builds the problems would be much reduced. But as Wol said, the head in the sand approach seems to be much more in favour with our politicians - hey, lets just build a new dam - despite the fact that there is no rain to fill it or lets build a pipeline to be able to pipe the water around - ohh hold on, there's no water to pipe - & lets build a water treatment works - even though by the time it's built we will have run out of water anyway - yeah good one

< /offsoapbox>

But hey, at least no-one has had to ask for refund on their visa cos it's rained .

Edited to add - by the way I was just doing a few rough calculations & working on the govt's spin on the water usage, if we all used our 140litres/day/head (maximum allowed that they want us all to get down to) a family of 4 would use 560 litres/day, 3920 litres/week & 50,960 litres in 13 weeks (3 months). So the 44,000 litres that have run off the roof in the last 3 months wouldnt have been enough for the household. Of course the point is not so much that the water tanks wouldnt have worked, but that BOY some people must us an awful lot of water if they are trying to encourage us to cut down to 140l/day per person