Southern Hemisphere Growing Season 2025/26

[Jonathan]

22 hours ago, Tyrone said:

Got another cold front here today. I hope it gets to Victoria and Tassie. We don’t need the rain anymore. 

Well we got 4mm yesterday...hardly a deluge!

14mm total for August, 32mm so far this month, fingers crossed for October, which is statistically our wettest month.

[Tyrone]

1 hour ago, Jonathan said:

Well we got 4mm yesterday...hardly a deluge!

14mm total for August, 32mm so far this month, fingers crossed for October, which is statistically our wettest month.

I can’t even imagine such little rain in August and September. I think that’s roughly what we got in January and February but admittedly with a 42.7C day thrown in to vaporise any moisture around. I don’t think of Tassie being so dry. Is there any green around? I think going on the law of averages you must be going to get a wet summer. With the IOD in negative territory and La Niña forming I wouldn’t be surprised if you get your rain soon. 
 

At the moment my bore spear is just oozing water to the surface without the pump running. That didn’t happen last year, but probably happened about 3 times before in wet years. Other places around the property I’ve just got water rising to the surface in weird places with water trickling downhill. 27C and 29C forecast for next Tuesday and Wednesday. That should wake things up. 

[Jonathan]

11 hours ago, Tyrone said:

I can’t even imagine such little rain in August and September. I think that’s roughly what we got in January and February but admittedly with a 42.7C day thrown in to vaporise any moisture around. I don’t think of Tassie being so dry. Is there any green around? I think going on the law of averages you must be going to get a wet summer. With the IOD in negative territory and La Niña forming I wouldn’t be surprised if you get your rain soon. 
 

At the moment my bore spear is just oozing water to the surface without the pump running. That didn’t happen last year, but probably happened about 3 times before in wet years. Other places around the property I’ve just got water rising to the surface in weird places with water trickling downhill. 27C and 29C forecast for next Tuesday and Wednesday. That should wake things up. 

Yeah, I think it does sound odd to most mainlanders but Hobart is actually the second driest state capital after Adelaide. There's a massive rainfall gradient from west to east in Tassie, with 2.5m of rain in parts of the west down to about 400mm (in a good year) where we live at the mouth of the Derwent River.

I was up visiting my father on the NW coast last weekend...it was emerald green and lush, which along with the 4m deep red basalt soils always leaves me questioning my life choices as I drive home!

[tim_brissy_13]

Only 8mm rain so far for September here after 38mm for August. I usually don’t water anything in ground until October but we’ve been having days above 20C coupled with wind gusts above 80km/h which dries things out quickly. Hand watering things like Lepidorrhachis and Ceroxylon and will soon turn on the automatic irrigation once the cold nights are over and the risk of rot has passed for the more sensitive tropical species. 20.3C max today after a minimum of 4.7C. 

[Tyrone]

You guys are blowing me away with your rainfall stats. Alarm bells would be ringing loud if we only had 8mm of rain in September by the 19th, especially if August was dry too. The farmers would be seriously anxious if that happened. I can’t even imagine turning my retic on yet. Here’s hoping that La Niña and the negative Indian Ocean Dipole work hand in hand to give you guys in Victoria and Tassie a warm and wet spring summer growing season. I think here in SW WA neither of those things affect us. Ocean temps are still high but they’re forecasting  average rainfall for the next 3 months and above average max and mins. This morning the min was 12C and my place is sort of in the clouds with light drizzle running off the leaves. You can’t really see the rain just hear it running off the leaves in heavier droplets. The rainforest effect I suppose. I can’t wait for sunny weather in the high 20s next week.