K-town cries out for rain

RESIDENTS in Katherine are praying for some long-awaited rain relief this coming week after enduring their driest January in four years.

The month’s low rainfall comes off the back of Katherine recording its lowest December rainfall ever on record with 64.4mm. Based on the rain gauge at Tindal RAAF, Katherine got just 169.0mm of rain in January – 40 per cent down on the town’s monthly average.

But Katherine Mayor Fay Miller said most of those falls recorded at the Tindal weather station didn’t even hit town last month.

“Every time we thought some rain would pass over town it didn’t and just parted around us instead,” she said.

“It’s like we’re living in doughnut hole.

“This is shaping up to be our worst Wet in a long time.”

She said Katherine had turned brown after Power and Water brought in water restrictions in town for the first time last year.

The town’s main source of drinking water, Katherine River, has also been running low. The latest water levels from Railway Bridge show the river sitting at just 1.3m yesterday – compared to 5m during the same time last year.

The Darwin River Dam has also dropped to its lowest levels in 14 years to just 54 per cent.

The Bureau of Meteorology said Katherine could expect a medium to high chance of afternoon/overnight showers and thunderstorms this week.

“The reason for the dry start to the wet season has been a very strong and long-lived positive Indian Ocean Dipole,” forecaster Billy Lynch said.

“It decreases the atmospheric moisture required for rainfall. This weather feature has now ended and the forecast is for average rainfall for the last three months of the wet season.”

He said a monsoon trough was expected to form around the base of the Top End later this weekend which will lead to an increase in shower and storm activity across the region.