Part 1 of 3: The whole 130-year record

(See Notes below for data and plotting details.)

Anomalies of smoothed summer and winter rainfall

Episodes of high or low summer rainfall do not coincide with those of winter rainfall (except in 1891). Nor do they consistently oppose each other, although this is common. The summer rainfall anomaly (red) was extremely low (-101 mm) about 1900, and extremely high (+119 mm) about 1975. The winter rainfall anomaly (blue) had lower extreme values: 1939 (-48 mm) was the lowest of several low values, and 1987 (+63 mm) the highest of several high ones.

Seasonal sums and differences

I plotted the smoothed yearly value of rainfall anomaly as the sum (purple) of a winter anomaly value and that of the following summer. There was an extreme maximum in 1891 (+139 mm!), and minimal values in 1899 (-79 mm) and 1913 (-87 mm), among others.
The difference between summer and winter seasonal anomalies (orange) shows as an extreme summer excess in 1974 (+163 mm), and extreme winter excesses in 1900 (-126 mm) and 1987 (-114 mm).

“Dreadful Thirst”

Banjo Paterson’s comic verse “City of Dreadful Thirst” refers to the town of Narromine, 300 kilometres west of Manilla.
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