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Tough year in Australia.
Movotti
Posts: 7,774 Member
I dunno how much of this is in the news in other parts of the world, but parts of Australia are going through the worst drought in 100 years, and a huge portion of the country has declared drought.
Officially, one of our larger states is 60% declared drought, but realistically, it's more like 90%. That's close to one sixth of the country.
Queensland is bigger than Texas.
The next state down from Queensland is New South Wales, which is currently at 2/3 in drought
NSW is about as big as Texas.
Parts of NSW have had below average rainfall for the past seven years.
Dams are drying up, level 6 water restrictions are a way of life. Bore water won't last forever without rain to replenish it.
We're nearing the end of winter. There should be grass growing.
I'm in South Australia, which is known as the driest state, on the driest (inhabited) continent on earth. I now live in the one of the direst regions of that state. And today, this state is expecting one of the worst dust storms in 100 years? Probably longer. This is the time of year when farmers are usually putting in crops. In some parts of this state, over the last week, farmers were tearing up their fields in anticipation of the rain that has been forecast for the weekend. That was before a severe weather warning was made.
Goodbye topsoil
The yellow area is where the dust storm is expected. Yeah, almost half the state.
South Australia is about as big as Venezuela
The wind is making my roof rattle. I hope it stays on, we're expecting gusts of up to 100km/h O.O
If you want to know more, or if you want to try to help, see Here.
Officially, one of our larger states is 60% declared drought, but realistically, it's more like 90%. That's close to one sixth of the country.
Queensland is bigger than Texas.
The next state down from Queensland is New South Wales, which is currently at 2/3 in drought
NSW is about as big as Texas.
Parts of NSW have had below average rainfall for the past seven years.
Dams are drying up, level 6 water restrictions are a way of life. Bore water won't last forever without rain to replenish it.
We're nearing the end of winter. There should be grass growing.
I'm in South Australia, which is known as the driest state, on the driest (inhabited) continent on earth. I now live in the one of the direst regions of that state. And today, this state is expecting one of the worst dust storms in 100 years? Probably longer. This is the time of year when farmers are usually putting in crops. In some parts of this state, over the last week, farmers were tearing up their fields in anticipation of the rain that has been forecast for the weekend. That was before a severe weather warning was made.
Goodbye topsoil
The yellow area is where the dust storm is expected. Yeah, almost half the state.
South Australia is about as big as Venezuela
The wind is making my roof rattle. I hope it stays on, we're expecting gusts of up to 100km/h O.O
If you want to know more, or if you want to try to help, see Here.
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Race Against the Clock: Can your elder sim turn back the clock before their time runs out?
The green bits near the bottom, that's where the farm land is, and that whole region is in drought.
It's our biggest state.
Here in SA, we had some rain last night, at least enough to clear the dust out of the air.
Unfortunately, when I went to bed last night, I found myself sleeping with a pile of grit. I think I need to vacuum my bed.
I am sincerely sorry for the drought you or anyone else in Australia are going through and hope that it doesn't last much longer. I would send all the rain we've been getting here in the south-east this past week if I could. May everything get better and peace, love, and happiness to you.
You are loved!
You are loved!
Except for all those times when the US wasn't involved when a big event happened? Terrorist attacks? Plane crashes? The earthquake over in Indonesia and the protests going on in Bangladesh, all of which I saw on the news today when I had it on for about 2 minutes? The droughts have been on-going and, no offense to Australia, droughts are absolutely horrible, but something like that isn't going to be on the news too much in the US, especially as an on-going thing, just as the 6 year drought that went on in California probably wasn't on the news that much over there.
But yes, I heard of this a bit back, and it's bad. I'm all too used to droughts. Like I said, California, where I live, was in a six-year drought until last year, when we got a strange amount of rain. And unfortunately, as we've been seeing lately, these droughts lead to a yearly wildfire season. And when I say season, I mean literally thousands of fires in each season. I've seen so many wildfires in my lifetime, and have been evacuated out of my house numerous times due to them. Even went to school with a guy that lost his home in one. Some of the most destructive ones in California history (Cedar, Witch) were ones I had to be evacuated because of.
Even right now, the air quality is awful, and we can barely see the outlines of the mountains we can usually see clear as day. One of the major fires of this season, in the county I live in, was just announced contained today.
Hope for the best for Australia over this drought. Droughts bring up so many more issues than just the lack of rain and dry, as you've shown with the upcoming dust storms.
I know people who have lost more than their homes in bushfires.
Bushfires are sometimes naturally occurring in Australia, without fire, some of our native plants don't germinate.
One of the biggest problems is that urban sprawl covers a lot of the highest quality farmland. It happens in every country. Cities started out as farming communities, and then they grew.
I live in US and have seen news on this drought on TV. Also saw news on the horrible fires in Greece, which scared me so much I called my family immediately to make sure they were ok (they were thank goodness) and the news about California too (which is in our country, but even the local news of my state was talking about it.
I really hope the drought in Australia let's up soon. We had a drought in my home state many years back, though I was too young to see the whole affects it had, but I know this must be hard. I also hope you are safe.
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All of NSW has now been declared as officially in drought.
There is a song that sums up the reality of the weather here
I'm the hot wind from the desert
I'm the black soil of the plains
I'm the mountains and the valleys
I'm the drought and flooding rains
I am the rock, I am the sky
The rivers when they run
The spirit of this great land
I am Australian
We get drought, we get floods, we don't get much between.
Drought is horrible. At least with floods, when the water recedes, things will easily and quickly grow again.
With drought, everything gets drier and drier, the wind blows away the topsoil and the seeds. There's nothing for stock to eat, nothing for them to drink. And they end up too weak to transport.
This is what the dust storm was like near my parents place
One of the biggest problems in their area is the soil from some farmers paddocks keeps drifting onto the highway.
In better news, farmers in Tassie are donating hay to farmers in NSW. Natural disasters always bring aussies together.