PREDICTED DROUGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 134, 4 December 1944, Page 6

PREDICTED DROUGHT

LONG-RANGE FORECASTS

O.C. SYDNEY, November 22. Increasing numbers of Australian farmers and some scientists claim that the accuracy of long-range weather forecasts has been established by the prediction, nearly 40 years ago, of the present drought. The forecast was made in 1915 by Mr. Clement Wragge, then Queensland State Meteorologist, who said that 1944 would be the driest period in Australian 1 history. "Trees will die, and creeks and, rivers dry up," hfe said. But this will be followed by?a 'Succession of good seasons, alternating with drought periods, as before." An /Englishman, Mr. Wragge was commissioned by the Queensland Government in 1886 to report on meteorological services. The next year he was appointed State Meteorologist. In 1890 the Government urged him to try lpng-ran^e forecasts. His 1890-1932 forecasts are still quoted by farmers. Believing in his work, they provided against the 1927 drought—five years after Wragge's death—and were saved many thousands of pounds. ■' Farmers from all parts of Australia believe in the efficacy of this long-range forecasts from the Queensland bureau. They have the same faith in Mr. Inigo Jones, the present research expert, as in his predecessor. Mr. Jones hopes to see the service carried on. He once said: "When the torch drops out of my hands the nay on should be ready to pick it up—just as I took it out of the dying hands of the late Mr. Clement Wragge." ■_ The drought in South Western New South Wales and across the border in Victoria continues unabated. Farmers for the first time in the history of the State are migrating north to earn money harvesting crops, because their own have failed and they face ruin. The president of the N.S.W. Farmers' and Settlers' Association, Mr. B. Cole, said, after a 200-mile tour, that in the once rich wheat country of the Riverina,-there is not one crop tKat can be stripped. In the central west around Parkes, farmers have lost two - I thirds of their crops and are battling against man-power shortage, grasshoppers, dust storms, and water shortage. The Parkes district normally supplies more than 5;000,000 bushels— 10 per cent, of the State's wheat. This year it will be 1,000.000 bushels. In the .Walgett (norfh-west) district 250,000 sheep have died.