History lesson for Judy Byatt and Julia Marr and ilk The Brisbane Courier Friday 11 October 1889 THE PREDICTED DROUGHT. Australian weather statistics 1782 – 1889. ” In order to throw some additional light on the above question, I will furnish a few condensed Australian weather statistics of the last 107 years, and if anyone can found a positive forecast on them he is welcome to do so ; all that I can see in them is the simple fact that floods and droughts alternate out here with “lucid intervals” of ordinary settled and moderately wet or dry weather. Captain Cook in 1770 says little about the weather. Dampier in 1690 or thereabouts was equally silent. Captain Matthew Flinders reports drought and bush fires from 1782 to 1792. There was a great drought in 1797 for 100 miles round where Melbourne now stands ; 1799 to 1806 were very wet years, and in 1806 the floods culminated by a rise of 101 ft. at Windsor, on the Hawkesbury River. The crops were destroyed, wheat rose to 80s. a bushel, and a famine prevailed. The excessive rain kept on till 1810, but 1811 cut it short, and was so dry that water was worth 8d. per bucketful in Sydney. This drought was sharp but short, and there was plenty of increasing rain for years afterwards, till in 1820 the Hunter River rose 37ft. Ten years now elapsed without any more floods, and it was so dry from 1826 to 1829 that water at last became worth 4d. a gallon in Sydney. 1830 saw the first flood for ten years. Ordinary weather followed till 1837, but 1838 and 1839 saw the champion drought of the century. Stock were all but exterminated. The Murrumbidgee is a great river, 150ft. wide, 60ft. deep, and overflows its banks, like the Nile, when the head snows melt, for five miles on each side to a depth of 3ft. This gives a volume of water equal to a river of 1450 ft. wide and 120 ft. deep, and besides this it fills a group of lakes each from seven to eighteen miles in diameter. Yet this great river dried up so thoroughly in 1839 that the fish died and putrefied at the bottom of it. I make no comments on what such a drought now would do to Queensland, and I am at present only going for dry facts and bald statistics. 1841 broke up this drought with the champion flood of Queensland; the Bremer River rose 70ft., and the Brisbane bar not being then dredged, there was no quick “get away” for the water, and it filled the lower story of the commissariat stores here, and Ipswich was very short of rations for some days. Moderate rain carried the colony of Now South Wales (then the only one) on till 1849, when dry weather began and lasted till May, 1851. The scattered bush fires of Victoria got ” boxed” into one mighty whole on 6th February, 1851 (” Black Thursday “), before a southerly hurricane which sent smoke and leaves across Bass Straits. 1852 brought a flood that swept Gundagai away and drowned the inhabitants ; 1853 saw great overflows of the Lachlan, Murrumbidgee, and Darling rivers, but not from local rain ; 1854 was dry; 1855 and 1856, ordinary weather; 1857 was a flood year, with three months ceaseless rain from February to May. Settled weather lasted till 1863, which, with 1864, both gave heavy flood. The weather settled again till 1873 (bar a small drought up North in 1866), which, with 1875, was very wet, and gave a flood each. Settled weather again carne, with a small local flood in 1879-80 ; 1882 very wet: 1883 to 1886 very dry; 1887 very wet; 1888 very dry; 1889 moderately wet. Here we have 107 years of statistics, and who can discern from them the rule that guides the weather ? A matter which enters so largely into our health and comfort, happiness and prosperity, that I hope to be excused for thus dwelling upon it. …… N. Bartley The Brisbane Courier 1889 ” and Reports of Drought by our Early Settlers. Governor Arthur Phillip 1791 Governor Arthur Phillip wrote the following to the Colonial Secretary, the Right Honourable W. W. Grenville on 4 March 1791: The Tank Stream Sydney (10) “From June until the present time so little rain has fallen that most of the runs of water in the different parts of the harbour have been dried up for several months, and the run which supplies this settlement is greatly reduced, but still sufficient for all culinary purposes… I do not think it probable that so dry a season often occurs. Our crops of corn have suffered greatly from the dry weather.” On 5 November 1791, the governor of this colony, Arthur Phillip, reported that the normally perennial ‘Tank Stream’ river flowing into Sydney Harbour had been dry for “some months”. It did not flow again until 1794. Phillip marks the start of the droughts in July 1790; no rain had fallen by August 1791 ** During the drought in 1814 Governor Macquarie had to import food to avoid what he called: “the heavy calamity of very great scarcity, both of animal feed and of grain, if not in an actual famine.” home.iprimus.au/foo7/droughthistory.html#8
Posted on: Sun, 08 Jun 2014 07:47:13 +0000
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