Australian Summer Recap

The rains helped, but they weren't enough - at least, not yet:

DAM levels across the country have risen in the past year, but the Murray Basin remains in the grip of a big dry, and almost 70 per cent of Australia's farmland is still drought-declared.

...Melbourne's summer rainfall was 110 per cent of the long-term average, but stream flows were just 58 per cent of the long-term average. "The old rainfall-runoff relationship has broken down," WSA chief executive Ross Young said. "This demonstrates how dry catchments are."

...Southeast Queensland has the harshest water restrictions, but there is "a strong community focus on water conservation. The target of 140 litres per person per day has been beaten often." Mr Young said.

Average daily summer water use in Melbourne during the 1990s was 1631 litres, compared with 1092 litres a day at the end of last month.

Melbourne last year had the lowest per capita water consumption since 1934, while Sydney consumed the same amount it did in 1974, despite having 1.2 million more residents.

Mr Young said Brisbane's water storages had "been in freefall since the turn of the century". But 300mm of rain over summer, which is about average, had boosted the city's dams from 20.17 per cent of capacity to 38.84 per cent.

...At the end of last month, storages were at 100 per cent in Darwin, 66.4 per cent in Sydney and 61 per cent in Hobart. Melbourne storages were at 35.5per cent and Perth's at 34.8per cent.

The picture was mixed in the regions, with storages at only 9.5per cent capacity in Ballarat, northwest of Melbourne, and 12.9per cent in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, while the Goulburn catchment, southwest of Sydney, is 65.6 per cent full. Brisbane has the harshest water restrictions in Australia, while Hobart and Darwin have none.

It was sort of an odd summer:

Sydney residents and tourists are cursing La Nina as the harbor city says goodbye to the summer that wasn't.

While the La Nina weather pattern is delivering rain to farmers after the worst drought in a century, it's cutting profits for cafe owners, travel agents and insurers. Insurance Australia Group Ltd., the nation's largest home insurer, last week posted a sixth straight profit decline after hail storms cost it A$105 million ($97 million). The yearly `Symphony in the Park,' which usually attracts 80,000 people, had 700 this year as the orchestra played behind a tarpaulin during a downpour.

...After four years of water restrictions, Sydney saw about 50 percent more rain than usual this summer, according to Mike De Salis, a spokesman at Australia's Bureau of Meteorology.

No day topped 31 degrees celsius (88 degrees fahrenheit) for the first time since 1956. Average daily sunshine totaled 6.7 hours, an hour less than normal and the lowest since 1991-92. The average maximum temperature was 25.2, the coolest since 1996-97.

``Suddenly we get one cool, wet summer and everyone's complaining,'' said De Salis.

Matthew Hassan, an economist at Westpac Banking Corp., said the soggy summer has weighed on Sydney's $285 billion economy.

``The endless rain is certainly adding to the sense of gloom,'' Hassan said. Employment and housing data show Sydney is already struggling with rising interest rates and gasoline prices.

...Dam levels rose to 64.4 percent at the end of February from 37.1 percent a year ago. Rain fall reached 439 millimeters this summer, compared with an average of 298 millimeters.

``We're not whinging about the rain,'' said Ben Fargaher, chief executive officer of the National Farmers' Federation in Canberra, Australia's capital city. ``Good living weather is not good farming weather.''