Towards the Final Curtain P

Friday 31st. January.  The temperature  yesterday (30th) peaked at 46c and didn’t drop below 28c the whole night. The ground being still hot, I waited until after the sun had gone down and things calmed down a bit before I ventured out with Benji, after I checked the road.  It was muggy (very humid) but bearable for the first five or six minutes of the walk, then the wind suddenly sprang up. At first we kept on walking but the wind became stronger and started lifting the dust up. This dust was hitting my face and Benji looked uncomfortable,  so I made the decision to get home. When we did get home the first thing Annabell asked me was “where did that come from?” Shortly after, the wind just vanished and the rain started. Now, the forecaster said that we would have heavy rain with the possibility of flooding. We could hear the rain on the carport and I went outside to have a look and came back in and told Annabell that the ground wasn’t even wet. What it did do was increase the humidity and made for a more uncomfortable night. I have not had a lot of sleep.  It did rain a bit off and on during the night.  This morning Benji and I went out but being tired I sort of put it off and finally made the decision to go out at 06:30. It was still sticky but not too bad and there was some (not a lot) of water in the guttering and the spoon drain. I looked at the weather on the BoM page and it says a 9% chance of rain, 77% Humidity, Temp. 36c.  Tomorrow is the first day of February. This has always been the month we were most concerned with because it was always the hottest month of summer. Be interesting to see how it plays out this year.  This section was written early this afternoon and it has been fairly quiet

Well the thunderstorms have made their way up the Peninsula and it has been really chucking it down for the last few hours – almost non-stop since about 8:30pm and it is now almost 11pm and it’s still going. This is flooding rain and  I expect some flooding around the town but not too much since the storm water drains should take away most of it. Of course, that’s what they said at Port Lincoln and that flooded badly. However, we are not as low-lying as Port Lincoln.  I had a look out of the back window and the back garden is flooded – almost a pond . The noise is incredible when added to the thunder and the little bit of lightening (not a lot) If it stops by the morning I really want to go have a look at the pit at the far end of the area and see how much water is in that. Given the ferocity of the storm I should imagine it will be pretty full.  The Pit is about 16 feet deep. It is

almost midnight and it’s still raining – not with the same ferocity as it was earlier but still raining. There has been serious

flooding in Port Lincoln and the Lower Eyre Peninsula but it was too late before we got it hit to be able to determine, what, if any, damage there has been here.

Saturday 1st February.  The rain continued fairly heavy until after midnight. It then eased off a bit but it rained the whole night. It is now 05:45 and although I turned off the alarm I still woke up and it was still raining and starting to get heavier again. It’s still not light enough to see outside – and in case you ask – no we are not going out for our walk this morning. With the flood water drains in operation this rain should do wonders to the sort out the  lack of water in the Wetlands. However, it has now been raining for about 11 hours and still no indication that it’s about to stop any time soon. Yes, it did stop but it was almost 1pm before it did and even after that there was a bit of a smattering of light rain for a bit. However, Benji and I did drive to the outskirts of town and photograph the second of the new “Welcome” posts.

There has been some minor flooding and the road to Iron Baron has been cut off by floodwater and closed by the police and State Emergency Service. Other than that nothing much else reported other than a few minor leaks in the food court at the shopping center. It is certainly strange, Australia- On Fire today – Flooding tomorrow. Annabell has been sick again and we visited the Emergency Dept. at the Hospital. In the morning I will make an emergency appointment with her doctor. Really, something has to be done about these continued  UT infections and the on-going damage to her liver and kidney functions. We have to get to the bottom of this – and soon.