From January 1 to June 15 Byron Shire received 1.2 metres or 47 inches less rain than it normally does, a trend that actually began two years ago for the whole east coast of New South Wales.
The southern mountains of NSW has had about twice our rainfall this year. (http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/drought/#tracker)
Doppler radar shows our rain is consistently coming from the northwest, meaning that we are now on the rain shadow side of the Great Dividing Range.
This will be quite disastrous for our area if this trend continues in the years to come, changing our area from a lush, dense green, subtropical rainforest area, to a temperate savannah area.
This is it not due to the current developing El Nino, which will only make the drought even worse, but instead would seem to be the result of man-made global warming.
Peter Olson, Goonengerry
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