Day 7 of the Deluge

Grand Central Hotel, Brisbane,
originally uploaded by BrisbaneBryce.

Today marks the seventh day in a row of rain in Brisbane. The photo is the facade of the old Grand Central Station in Brisbane. It has a clock tower (cut off in this photo). From the architecture, I'd guess it's an old-time building in Brisbane.

We got 93mm of rain yesterday. The main reservoir (called a catchment here), Wivenhoe, is now at 16.77% of capacity. In a week of rain, the amount of water behind the dam has risen 0.3%. This translates to just a few weeks of water for the area. Not very much.

It's predicted that we'll have less than 6% of capacity this time next year. This is some kind of drought. It's all about geography. California is blessed with a huge, high mountain range to the East of an ocean. California manages to catch all the moisture coming from the Pacific and turn it into precipitation. The East coast of Australia isn't so lucky. The mountains aren't nearly as high. That's because the continent is so old compared to the Sierra Nevada. And, we're on the Western Slope of the mountain range, so we don't catch the moisture from the westerlies.

On the Eastern slope of the Great Dividing Range that runs down the East coast of Australia, there is a huge artesian basin. Lots of water there, though it's mostly underground and under a layer of hard rock. Brisbane, and southeast Queensland (SEQ to the locals), is really in a tough spot, geologically and geographically.

We're all very grateful for what wet we do get.

My workmates and I had lunch at a local restaurant this afternoon. It was raining fairly hard. Not a cold rain, but steady, and wet. Quite abnormal. I didn't mind at all. It was nice to get rained on and get my head and face wet for a change. It will be dry again all too soon.