Dreary

[Gene]

Davel:

I envy your weather. Here in Southern California, rain is but a distant memory. Water experts tell us we are down to less than 30% reservoir capacity remaining. One suggestion is to dig old-fashioned “outhouses” in our back yards to conserve toilet water. Can this actually be happening?  It is…..now before our very eyes……….GG

[Britta]

I envy your weather.

I doubt that you'd repeat that if you've had it for a few weeks 
You may want the water but you sure as hell don't want the rest of the package, at least not for weeks on end.

[Darryl]

Davel:

I envy your weather. 

Well, we envy your weeks of rain too. It will take many many weeks of good soaking rain to relieve the drought of western Queensland and parts of NSW. But then, we are a very big country. While outback Qld is parched, there are floods around Sydney and the north coast of NSW this morning. Pity we can't even it out and send the coastal rain inland.
As far back as 1933 there were plans to take advantage of tropical rainfall by diverting Australia's coastal rivers from North Queensland into the outback (The Bradfield Scheme) but it never eventuated.
I hear that Mount Isa, where we lived previously, is in dire straits with water shortages. No-one in Western Queensland complains when it rains. They dance in the streets.

[Britta]

No-one in Western Queensland complains when it rains. They dance in the streets.

That's probably because it doesn't do that on 300 days a year! The problem here is not the rain as such. We're going to have months of (nothing but) rain between November and April but normally, this time of the year should be fairly dry. At the moment the fruit is rotting on the trees and what doesn't rot tastes bland and water soaked; wheat, rye and barley are rotting on the stem because we don't get two dry days in a row. I will have to throw away about 90% of my tomatoes because they burst and rot or develop blight with the constant rain. Can you imagine not seeing the sun for weeks, not being able to get your clothes dry without a dryer or having to keep the central heating running to prevent mildew on the walls - and call it "summer"?

Fortunately, at the moment we seem to be in for a few days with some sunshine where it will rain only for a few hours a day. That's an improvement.

[davel]

As thought, the month of August was the wettest / coolest in England in somewhere around 20 years, but things have not been as dire here as Britta recounts. My tomatoes, however, are also not ripening, and are splitting and suffering from blight, as are Britta's. Towards the end of last week (Thurs - Fri) they were saying we would have another blast of summer, but that didn't happen! We had a mostly dry weekend, and the sun came out yesterday afternoon, but today is another cool day of steady drizzle.

A couple years ago, when we had had a drought, there was talk here of schemes such as Darryl mentioned, to get water somehow from the North West to the South East, but nobody was able to come up with any practical scheme.

As for Gene's toilets in the back yard, hmm, I hope it doesn't come to that. In times of water scarcity, we are told to use grey water (from having washed the dishes, for example) in a bowl to flush the toilet, and I think some people may have diverted the waste pipe from their washing machines to somehow flush the toilets. At my house, we try and remember to use the dishwater to water our potted plants.

We are wondering what sort of winter we'll have - as Britta describes, that is our "wet" season but last winter was very wet indeed, with this part of Southern England receiving 225% the normal amount of rain.

To be continued as the months pass...

[Darryl]

First day of Spring here. Weather normal. Clear skies, cool mornings to warm days (high 20s). Picture perfect.

[Bertha]

Our summer here in Oklahoma has been "cooler" than usual for the most part.  It didn't really begin to be hot until the end of July and all the month of August.  We had a day or two of 80 degree weather and a bit of rain, but mostly it's been dry since June.  We're no longer in a severe drought. 

Today, it's Labor Day here which is the last holiday of the summer season.  Although most schools are already in session, things get really serious now.  We mark Labor Day weekend at the college where I work with a huge arts festival.  Last night, they shot off fireworks and the philharmonic played.  Today, it will be the last chance to buy a piece of art or get something from one of the food trucks.  I'm working in the call center--it's air conditioned.  It's probably going to be close to 100 degrees (F) too.