FIVE POINTS OF RAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 11, 14 January 1944, Page 3

FIVE POINTS OF RAIN

40 DAYS' PARTIAL DROUGHT Although five points of rain were recorded at Kelburn last night, this quantity was quite insufficient to do any lasting good and Wellington's partial drought continues. A partial drought in meteorological parlance is a period of 29 days or more during which the rainfall does not average more than one point a day. The present partial drought has now lasted 40 days since December 4, and during that period only 20 points of rain have been recorded at Kelburn. Meteorological records show that during the last 82 years Wellington has had 40 partial droughts, and of these only eight have been longer than 40 days, or longer than the present partial drought. Three of them lasted over 50 days. The longest partial drought began in January, 1867, and lasted 84 days. During that time the rauofall totalled 79 points, but as the lengthy partial drought was preceded by a fall of some 10 inches of rain its results were not so serious as they might have been. The present partial drought was preceded by a fall of three inches at the beginning of last month, but that soaking has long ago evaporated, i The few points of rain which have fallen at scattered intervals since then have never been enough to really wet the ground.