Wild wild weather

We've had some pretty heavy weather here in Brisbane lately. Over two days this past week my part of town had something like 400mm of rain. It's a bit odd to get rain in Brisbane this time of the year. Mostly summer is wet and winter is dry. The May average rainfall for Brisbane (at the airport) is something like 100mm and the annual average only 1200!

Some suburbs were really badly hit. In my part of town Ithaca Creek broke its banks in a few places and a whole suburb (St Johns Wood) was isolated.

My place wasn't much affected. The downstairs rooms got water running through them (they're below ground level on one side), the gravel from the driveway got washed across the back yard and there is a large hole in the back ground next to the far side fence where the ground has subsided.

My main grump is that my bike route to work is along a linear park alongside Enoggera Creek. Half of it is covered in mud and the floodway creek crossings won't be passable for weeks. Some of the timber bridges that were damaged in last November's storms might be washed away totally. I don't know yet.

The rain did have a good side. The drought is now officially over, and the dam levels went from a respectable 60% to a good 73% over this week.

Raining

My new rainwater tank, installed just before Christmas, is now full and overflowing. I've connected the pump and it seems to have enough pressure to fill the upstairs loo. Hurrah!

I think I now need to go and sprinkle some fertilizer on the lawn. How decandent.

Weather version of Murphy's law

I had a large (5000L) rainwater take installed and plumbed during the week. I am looking forward to being able to water a (small) lawn again, and being able to water vege patch without treking up and down the garden with a watering can.

The weather seems to have returned to the pattern of 'rain 5 days from now' - the 5 days away never actually arrive.

Is there a version of Murphy's Law in operation here? Plenty of rain - until you try and catch it!

Just briefly

The worst storm in decades *was* pretty fierce. Driving through it with 10m visibility and debris over the road was, um, interesting. If we'd known at the time how bad it was we probably wouldn't have set out.

The worst hit areas are only a few km from where we live and we didn't even lose power. Lucky.

It's hardly stopped raining since. Pity the order for a rainwater tank is still sitting on the kitchen table :-(

Rain

So far, 2008 has been wet.

Really really wet.

Rain nearly every day this month.

Brisbane's dams are now over 30% of capacity (up from something like 15% this time last year)

There are gullies across my back yard where the water running under the fence from my neighbour has pushed aside the gravel. The whole lower back yard is a damp mess. The vegies, especially the tomatoes have given up the ghost with the swampy ground.

Amazingly there was just a little bit of sun yesterday and this afternoon, so for the first time in 3 weeks I get to mow the lawn, which is inches high. Of course, I run out of petrol half way through.

Bet it rains tomorrow again!