Still a very dry start to the year – Paul Rosser’s weather report

Here we are two months into 2025 & it has rained on three days for a total Year to Date (YTD) of 9.5mm.   It’s not our worst year in the last 100 years.   There have been 15 worse years, with ten of them being zero.

The rough average for February since recording began in our area at the Aldinga Post Office, up to when it closed in March 1992 & then Noarlunga until I started recording in 2012, is 18.1mm, so it has been very severe at 2.0mm for the month.  The YTD is 9.5mm, which is also quite low & is the cause of death to so many of our beloved plants.

How does this year compare to the last few years:

YEAR                                                   MONTH                                             YTD

2025                                                     2.0mm                                               9.5mm

2024                                                     Nil                                                     34.0mm

2023                                                   14.5mm                                             26.0mm

2022                                                     8.0mm                                             46.0mm

2021                                                   27.5mm                                             39.5mm (TC)

2020                                                   24.0mm                                             49.5mm (TC)

2019                                                     5.0mm                                               6.0mm

2018                                                     3.0mm                                               9.5mm

2017                                                   14.5mm                                             76.5mm

2016                                                   36.5mm                                             64.5mm (TC))

2015                                                     Nil                                                     31.0mm

2014                                                   48.0mm                                             60.0mm (TC)

2013                                                   12.0mm                                             19.0mm

2012                                                   72.0mm                                             75.0mm (TC)

In the last 13 years there were five Tropical Cyclones off the north west coast of Western Australia that gave us big ‘dumps’ of 15mm or more.  It is possible that this may happen in March this year as the TC season is still with us.  The eternal optimist has spoken!!

So, what is in store for us for the next three months:

• Average rains are forecast for autumn, yes summer has finished,
• Above average temperatures for day & night time,
• Increased bushfire risk well in to autumn, through to mid-April,
• Soil moisture currently non-existent, will gradually get better as average rainfall returns, hopefully,
• Ocean temperatures all around Australia will remain high, with all oceans in neutral mode,
• Our Reservoirs, currently at 40% will gradually rise as the season changes,
• Possibility of a Tropical Cyclone remains.

The First Nations calendar remains in their summer, ‘Warltati’.

I have just finished reading a good book, ‘Mr & Mrs Gould’ by Grantlee Kieza.   Well worth a read.   Available from the Aldinga Library.  A quote from the book stays with me, ‘In all, since the European colonisation of Australia twentyone species of birds & twentyseven species of mammals have been declared extinct, according to the Australia Museum.’  Not something to be proud of.

The cause is three-fold:

• Urbanisation,
• Poor farming practices, mainly destructive clearing
• Climate change since industrialisation.

Mr & Mrs Gould were colleagues of Charles Darwin & assisted him develop his theory of evolution.  He visited our region in 1840, camping at Perry’s Bend on the Onkaparinga River down at Port Noarlunga.   Birds from our area feature in his seven-volume set of ‘Birds of Australia’.   Elizabeth, his wife did most of the coloured plates for the work.

A recent radio broadcast aired on ABC Radio 891 reviewed what will happen in the next 25 years to our plant species.  The first to go with increased temperatures will be most of the exotics imported to our country over the last 200 years, because of heat & reduced precipitation.   The second to go will be our soft indigenous plants with shallow routes, starting in the north of the state & heading south.  Lastly, the larger species with deep roots may have time to adapt & could survive the longest.  This lines up with work the CSIRO is currently doing.

Trees for Life, an organisation close to my heart, adopted while I was on the Board, a practice of maintaining local indigenous species but with seed collected in the northern regions of the State.  This seed has adapted to drier conditions & is proving to be a sound decision on their part.   An example is Eucalyptus Camaldulensis, the local River Red Gums, are being grown with seed collected from the Flinders Ranges.  The latest Red Gums I have seeded for Kangaroo Island over the last two years have come from that source.   They are fine specimens & will improve the DNA of the islands trees when the bees get to work down there.

Complementing this is the new SA Government funding for the ‘Rebirding the Mount Lofty Ranges Program’, a program supported by Trees for Life, the Nature Conservancy Group, The Nature Foundation, Birds SA, The Adelaide University, SA Water, Bio-R, Greening Australia, the Nature Conservation Society of SA, Bird Life Australia & Conservation Volunteers is now open for grants to projects of over 10 hectares.    This is good to see.

That’s your lot for this month.

Paul

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Paul Rosser

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