(Dujon) That's 245 mm, against my 281 mm. Seems quite a lot to me, though your higher temperatures make it less "useful" hydrologically. But laying water out to dry is a bit of an indulgence in Australia, isn't it?

I'm writing this from my lovely back yard, powered by my clever new phone. [dr q] I got to keep one of the buggies featured on my house website, yay! If only i was small enough to fit in it!

[BM] It's not really hail till it's the size of giant golfballs ;-)
[Dujon] Urk, indeed. What has she been growing? I think lawn can be a bit of an extravagance, but a lot of other things can be made pretty water-sparing, but that depends on what they are. My own experiments in gardening had to be stopped a couple of years ago when I could no longer get the lucerne hay I needed, because of drought (no-dig style, lucerne hay topped with spent mushroom compost. Amazingly productive). I only ever grew veges, though.

I think I mentioned before, average rainfall here is around 100mm annually. This is a slightly old (1995) but still informative report on agricultural resources. Ironically, the largest crop here, other than dates? Alfalfa (lucerne).

[flerdle] That's a bit on the dry side! Where does water come from (and don't say the sky) - dams, next door's river? [Rosie] It does sound odd does it not. That's supposed to be our wet season though. Winter - at least where my castle is situated - tends to be the dryest time of year. We shall see. Sydney's main dam (Warragamba, about five miles from me as the crow flies) is said to be down just under the 50% capacity level which does not auger well.

[Dujon] Next door is at least as bad, if not worse - they have to resort to desalination of sea water. Along the Batinah coastal plain there are aquifers. The water itself is very high in calcium/lime but very safe, however because of the taste and the effect on kettles etc most drinking water is bottled springwater. There is a large mountain range about 30km inland, parallel to the coast, which gets the same to three times the rain that the plain does. There is continuous replenishment of the aquifers by seepage from the mountains, and from the flash floods that race down the wadis (dry gullies) when it does manage to rain. The rain, when it happens, is in the winter. The other main source of water close to the mountains are the Aflaj (sing: falaj), which are ancient and very reliable.

Anyone else having trouble accessing MCiOS? Another website I use was down yesterday, apparently due to Mayday hacker attacks on their server. I wonder if the same thing has happened to Parslow?