Warm fat tropical rain fell for a few days this week. The garden paths were barefoot, the chooks huddled under their shelter, we brought the sitting chook inside. I like tropical rain. It makes me think of banana palms and tree ferns, frogs and bats and the smell of rainforest. It makes me think of Hugh McCrae’s poem “Song of the Rain” and feel all secure and snuggly. I woke in the middle of the night to thunder. Normally it would be lovely to drop back into sleep to the sound of the rain drumming.
But imagining how Lismore people must be hearing it intruded. I lay awake thinking of them still in tents and caravans and make-do accommodation. Hard to sleep through an image of all the little creeks in the catchment rushing down to the river. Hard to quiet a mind rehearsing all the possible escape routes. And then I think of Pakistan, but the scale of that disaster is beyond my imagining, and I lay awake trying to not try to imagine it.
It is predicted to get worse. In the Northern Rivers, winter rain is expected to decrease and spring rain increase over the next few years, which is not unwelcome – spring is normally dry and windy and occasionally unseasonably hot. Spring currently has the highest Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI), higher even than summer, and rural Fire Service volunteers are on constant callout as landholders attempt to burn off. Wetter springs might take the edge off fire danger, and indeed, Northern Rivers is predicted to have only very small increases in severe fire weather – one additional day every two years up from an already low “average two days per year at Casino, but are rare at Lismore and Coffs Harbour”. Severe fire weather is actually predicted to decrease in autumn in the near future, and in the long term an increase in summer rain is likely to take the edge off it too.
Unlike north west Victoria, where the number of severe fire weather days is projected to increase by 40, to 100 a year. Imagine over three months of uncontrollable fire weather. A hint of smoke in the air would be for north west Victorians, like the sound of tropical rain on the roof in Lismore.
In Northern Rivers, it is the increase in autumn rain that is worrisome. Models are a bit all over the place, but most predict a substantial increase, up to 37% in the near term and 39% in the longer term. Autumn is already the flood season, and predicted to get more so. We are in a third la Niña year in a row, and still in early spring. What price being able to lie in bed listening to rain with the sense, like in Hugh McCrae’s poem, that all is well with the world?
Thanks for helping to put things in perspective Lindy <3
You’ve beautifully expressed what we… not too far from you, further south, in the Nambucca Valley, were feeling. Rain fills our tanks, gives the garden a deep drink. Our village is above river level and the only effect of its rising is being cut off from town, and town is overrated! We adapted with the last few big rain events… dug more drains, put in more aglines, added more ceiling fans. Now we just wait the rain out, keep busy updating the community Facebook groups, hoping locals will read/heed the warnings, stay home, safe, off the roads. All the time not only checking our own BOM radar but the Northern Rivers… where we’d visited only a couple of weeks ago, sadly witnessing the lingering aftermath and listening to prosaic conversations in the shops. While the rain falls yet again, like you we imagine, hoping it won’t be bad, this time or ever.