NO REPRIEVE ON RADAR
Despite a recent downpour across parts of the state, sustained drought-breaking rain isn’t forecast for Queensland anytime soon. And, even if heavy rains fall, it will take a long time to repair damage done by the current six-and-a-halfyear drought, says climatologist Blair Trewin.
A staggering 58.1 per cent of the state is currently drought declared, according to the Queensland Government. There are 23 fully drought-declared local government areas, five partly-declared areas as well as 112 individually droughted properties in a further 15 local government areas.
Mr Trewin, a Bureau of Meteorology climate scientist, says in some parts of the state the current drought is the worst it’s been since the mid-1920s and, as a whole, is “up there with significant longterm” drought events.
He says the first phase of the drought was a four-year period from April 2012 to May 2016 when there were generally dry conditions throughout much of inland Queensland, including many areas of western Queensland to NSW in the south.
“Then we had a very wet winter in 2016 which temporarily improved conditions for western Queensland, but then it went dry from late-2016 and it’s been dry ever since,” he says.
In the second phase, since October 2016 to the present, the driest conditions have been in the southern inland half of Queensland from Longreach southwards. To make matters worse, in the north the past two wet seasons had been ‘poor’.
“In the past six months we’ve had dry conditions extend to most of Queensland, but April to September is usually drier anyway,” he says.
“Overall the state has had a very long-term rainfall deficit. Southern inland Queensland has copped both the first and second phase of the drought.
“As for the concept of breaking a drought, you can’t determine this in one fell swoop – you might get a repeat of the wet weather in 2016 but at the end of the day that didn’t make much difference.
“What we’re looking for is a return to reasonably sustained average to above-average rain across a couple of wet seasons. Then again this depends on how the wet season goes and if there is normal summer rainfall. A six-plus years drought will take a lot of eroding.”
Looking ahead some 50 years, Mr Trewin says that over most of Queensland there’s “not any strong indication” the long-term dry will continue. However, for southern inland Queensland there may be a decrease in summer and winter rain, but Mr Trewin says this is not usually a period of high rainfall.