pommie bastard

September 02, 2002A B O U T U S T H E W E S T O N L I N E T H E W E S T S H O P T A B F O R M R E G I O N A L S T H E G A M E





Weathers always better that UK so ive been told.









Monday
Showers, windy.
17°C

Tuesday
Showers.
18°C

Wednesday
Showers.
18°C

Thursday
Showers.
18°C



















Windy, wet start to spring

By Peter Trott







WINDS gusting up to 90kmh and Perth's wettest September day for 14 years marked the start of spring.

Perth recorded 34.4mm in the 24 hours to 9am yesterday, bucking the trend of winter.

The June, July and August total of 384mm was 105mm below average.

At the end of winter, Perth had received 580mm compared with its average of 699mm to the end of August.

Perth's wettest September day was in 1984 when 51.8mm fell.

Dwellingup topped the rainfall list yesterday with 51mm in the 24 hours to 9am and another 2mm during the day.

Parched Wheatbelt areas got some relief as the front passed across the State with Hyden recording 14mm in the six hours to 4pm.

"I don't know what we had," WAFarmers president Colin Nicholl, whose farm is near Hyden, said.

"We had a couple of hours of really strong wind before the rain and it blew the rain gauge over."

Mr Nicholl said the rain was welcome but only a quarter of what was needed to give the ground a good soaking.

The eastern Wheatbelt needed rain badly and crops were under severe stress.

But he was confident that better conditions in coastal areas would make up for poor crops inland, giving a total harvest of about 7.5 million tonnes of grain.

This is four million tonnes less than last year and well short of the 13.3 million-tonne harvest in 1999-2000.

Water Corporation drought response manager Kevin Bradley said weekend rain would have kept the streams flowing into Perth dams, which on Friday were at 24 per cent capacity and 20 gigalitres less than last year's level of 183 gigalitres.

"But it's not as critical as last year because of the work we have done with the Yarragadee bores and the Harvey-Stirling redevelopment," he said.

Mr Bradley said a two-week dry spell in August had slowed the inflow to Hills dams but soil in the catchment areas was wet and a few more fronts in the next fortnight could see the levels edge over the total for the same time last year.

It may have been a wet Father's Day but instead of breakfast in bed, Lew Lewarne, of Thornlie, was up at 5am fishing at Fremantle's Rous Head.

"It was a bit wild today," Mr Lewarne, 58, said after hooking a 2kg tailor.

"The big tailor like it when it's really blowing but when you cast out you really have to curl your toes into the rocks.

"You wouldn't want to go in."

Mr Lewarne, who has a disability pension, fishes from Rous Head two or three times a week. But he said that yesterday was one of the roughest he had seen.


























© 2002 West Australian Newspapers Limited
All Rights Reserved.
Top Home

onlyme

You'd wanna lay off those Indian curries PB. Lovely weather in Sydney today, 22 degrees and no wind.

pommie bastard

You eastern state people have it all , sandgropers have to make do with bugger all.

jopaulss

Well PB the summer here in the UK has been the same , so hey what we loosing !!!!
Joanne

pommie bastard

You are gaining seems to be you only remember rainy days,there is no such thing as bad weather only bad clothes.
Up northern areas here to much sun and heat sends people Tropo as they call it here (nuts), maybe too much rain does same thing?