[SeaGypsy]

link I am writing this under the edge of a baby cyclone which is yet to be rated, the center of which is about 20 miles away and projected to go right over tonight. The system stretches from New Zealand, well into Indonesia and has already flooded western NSW.

Has the big dry broken? That remains to be seen, but

My Country by Dorothea McKellar (1885–1968) an iconic poem about Australia

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies -
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!

The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die –
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land –
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand –
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

[PatciMkc]

Thank El Nino!

[katkinkate]

According to the Weather Underground ocean surface temperature map (http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/) it looks like the elNino is weakening and all the hotter water is being pushed back to Australia again. That could play some part in the increase in rain over the last few weeks or so. Or it could just be the monsoon's last hurrah before the drier winter weather takes over. I've been watching the water flows into Lake Eyre as well (http://www.lakeeyreyc.com/Status/latest.html). The land is greening up again after the floods last year. That means when it all dries out again there's a good chance for some more spectacular dust storms this winter.