Ken Stewart finds that rainfall may have fallen in the last 30 years over Southern Australia but it has stayed remarkably constant in the long run.
Fig. 2: Cool season rainfall, Southern Australia, 1900-2017
Oops! Rainfall has in fact increased over southern Australia.
Stewart has also looked at the number of consecutive dry months across Australia. Looking at both 12 month periods and at 36 month periods it’s clear that we had more severe droughts more often from 1900-1970. The only exceptions are in SW WA (which is having a good year for rain this year) and small parts of Victoria and Tasmania.
Fig. 4: Number of consecutive months per calendar year of 12 months severe rain deficiency: Australia
Don’t forget to pop in at Kens Kingdom and say thanks for all the work he does.
Ken Stewart is not paid but can create these graphs. The Australian BoM gets a million dollars a day, and Ken used their definition of a drought, but there are no press releases about this from the BoM.
The ABC gets $3 million dollars a day. If [...]