Rains mock drought-stricken Australian town as climate risks hit home
By Jonathan Barrett
For all the relief felt in other parts of eastern Australia as torrential rain in the past few weeks doused wildfires and filled reservoirs, the tiny township of Murrurundi, one of the driest places in the country, just can't seem to catch a break.
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The struggling farming community of less than 900 people saw the rain falling in surrounding hills, and watched as the clouds passed by, but the three weeks of drizzle it has received was barely enough for families desperate to fill their water tanks.
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The town has survived for more than a year on water brought in daily by road tankers. Working six days a week, driver Mathew Byrne trucks in more than 120,000 litres of drinking water a day from the nearby town of Scone.
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Australia's Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) says the drought is being driven, in part, by warmer sea-surface temperatures impacting rainfall patterns. Air temperatures have also warmed over the past century, increasing the ferocity of droughts and fires.
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