Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall ...
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday November 27, 2002
Kookaburras, snakes and ants can be pointers to when the drought will break, as Allison Jackson discovered.
FOLKS around my way know, without a doubt, when the drought is going to break. My mum and dad live on 160 hectares near Glen Innes, the place with the balancing rocks on the Northern Tablelands.
In the past few weeks they have heard kookaburras laughing at lunch time and seen turtles leaving their creek in droves. Rain must be on its way, they reckon.
Ants have been acting up, too. Usually they build their nests in the ground, but now, laden with dirt, millions of them are crawling up fence posts to make new homes another good sign of rain.
Dad has another. ``If you sell all your stock, it generally rains three or four days later," he says. Dad sold all the sheep a few days ago. Fingers crossed.
Down the highway at Guyra, locals have a few of their own theories.
One farmer says when five not four or six but five black cockatoos fly together it means it will rain in five days. Clearly, the number is significant. And if you spot black cockatoos where they shouldn't be, don't bother washing the car.
Another farmer reckons when snakes start moving about, rain is on its way. Yet another, drier still, says a wet magpie is a good sign of rain.
Locals at Cunnamulla, in the drought-stricken south-west corner of Queensland, have also noticed the turtles on the move.
Retired farmer Tom Fagan says they are going from the river to the sewage pond. ``They are not very attractive turtles," he says.
And some of the trees are sprouting new leaves. The town is divided rain or impending death?
My Pommy neighbour says farmers back home rely on cattle to predict rain. When the cows lie down, rain is on its way. Of course, in England that's never far off. But would you back the animals?
Centrebet, which is taking money on the Victoria state elections and the 2002 Miss World competition, is keeping out of the drought.
``We draw the line at some things that could be construed as being unfortunate for people," says Gerard Daffy, the sports betting manager at Centrebet in Alice Springs.
``Something like this might be in bad taste. To do something like that we would really need to do a fair amount of homework, be in contact with the Bureau of Meteorology and go back and see how far back it rained."
Daffy still thinks taking a punt on when the drought would break could be a good insurance for farmers. ``If you could find someone to bet that it wouldn't rain before December next year, at least you would get some money out of it if it didn't rain," he says. ``That might be a chance for the farmers if they can find a friendly bookie and get a quote on it."
Not that everyone around Alice Springs wants rain.
``It rained the other day for half an hour and people are blueing because it rained. We are in the middle of the desert but drought is not something that people worry about. We had a million ants around our place the other day and it started belting down pretty soon afterwards."
Of course, everyone knew it would rain because everyone knew of a friend of a friend who has a friend who recently ripped up lino in their house and discovered an old newspaper article about the famous long-range weather forecaster, the late Inigo Jones. According to these friends, Jones predicted the drought would break in November this year.
Journalists everywhere have been tracking this in NSW, Queensland and Victoria, looking for proof of the prediction. This week, it seemed we had it. Liam Bagg, an honours student at Sydney University, wrote to the Herald saying his research showed Jones did predict the end of the drought, somewhere between November 17 and 27, in a follow-up report to his 1951 publication on his weather cycle theory.
On closer questioning, Bagg admitted that he'd made this up, wanting to get in the paper. There you go, Liam, you're in. But I hope you're not using the same research methods for your thesis.
Back to the drought. Out of all of this, the only reliable theory seems to be the one from a farmer in Woomera, South Australia. It will always rain after a long dry spell, he says.
© 2002 Sydney Morning Herald