My eye was caught by this ABC article – Eyes skyward for farmers waiting on rain – and the quote from the WA Premier “The Premier Colin Barnett has ruled out a bailout, saying some producers should consider walking away from their farms if they are no longer viable.”
I was curious to see long term rain trends for Merredin –
Annual rain –
and Winter rain
Recent numbers are similar to those from 1900 to before WWI – same pattern we see in Perth rain history – see chart in comments here.
Note Merredin data is only from 1903 – I added Burracoppin data to get back to 1900.
Here is another article – from The Australian 5 March – Farm exodus as drought sows seeds of despair – they choose to show a 36 mon rain decile map.
Map contrasting 36 and 24 month rain abundance.
Note that if you make the same map of rain deciles as in the article – but change the setting to 24 months not 36, the areas of average and above average rain are larger in the WA wheat belt. Remember “white” on the map is average rain. I note the farmers comments that they do not get rain when they need it and that summer rain has increased. Here are monthly rain totals from 2000
And the WA annual wheat crop from 1993
April to October rain –
Or to look at the same data another way…
The growing season (Apr-Oct) rainfall for Merredin (only Merredin data) shows a trend decline of 48mm (16%) between 1904 and 2012. A 16% decline in itself is significant. Further, if we assume, for the sake of demonstration, that the 1904 (trend) rainfall represents a threshold between a “good” and a “bad” season then 45% of the years up to 1958 were “good” years, since 1958 there have been 25% “good” years-so “good” years have become almost half as common in recent years.
You sure can not accuse the media of understating the situation.
Todays news in The West Australian
Farmers warn hundreds will walk off the land
This ABC article mentions several issues causing strife for farmers, not just rain.
High dollar, frost etc
Just saw this on the ABC – Report warns of permanent drought for Wheatbelt – of course – thanks to the Climate Commission who see clearly what is now so obvious – of course those charts are shouting at us that rain is ending.
Why is Australian public life so infected with garbage from Govt funded organizations ?