Rain - too much for some, too little for others by Elizabeth Saary
Rain never seems to fall in the right place. It is often the case that whilst some parts of the world are inundated with wet weather and suffer floods, others are desperately in need of some rain to rescue failing crops and depleted reservoirs.
Wet weather has been the subject in southwest China. Mountainous parts of the Yunnan province have received large amounts of snow – reports of over one metre of snow in places. Strong winds led to blizzard conditions and at least fifteen people are known to have died. Wind and heavy rain have also led to the destruction of over 3000 hectares of farmland.
Actual weather reports are rather sparse in this area, but just to the south, in northern Thailand, Chiang Rai has reported 21mm of rain in just one day. This is the amount they would normally receive on average during the whole of March.
In Cuba they are having the opposite problem. It is currently the dry season here but even so, rainfall amounts in the past few months have fallen well below the average. It has been reported that Cuba is facing its worst drought for more than a century. One in six Cubans are without running water, reservoirs are at about one third of their normal capacity and agriculture has been badly affected.
Many will by now be familiar with the ongoing drought problems in Australia, particularly in New South Wales. The state has never really recovered since 2002 when it experienced the worst drought conditions for a century. Crops are still under threat as up to two thirds of the state is still officially under drought conditions. March rainfall has been scant so far with most of the rain coming in isolated thunderstorms. Much more rain is still needed.
Of course in the far north of Australia there has been plenty of rain recently thanks to Tropical Cyclone Ingrid. The progress of this storm has been followed closely on these pages in the past week. The storm recently moved offshore from the mainland and dumped 97mm – twice the monthly average rainfall – on Bathurst Island just north of Darwin. It is now moving out into the Timor Sea but is expected to strengthen again and curve southwards to hit the north coast of Western Australia on Wednesday so I don’t think we have heard the last from Ingrid quite yet.
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