The heat disrupted train services in Melbourne. Photo: Angela Wylie

By SAFFRON HOWDEN AND JESSICA MAHAR
January 12, 2010 Roads remain submerged in floodwater, ghostly rivers have risen from the dead, paddocks are a sea of green, and mosquitoes are breeding like it’s the tropics. Welcome to the drought, NSW style. Despite a surge of devastating floodwaters through parts of the west and central west since Christmas, drought crept across a further 1 per cent of the state last month, taking its claim to 81.8 per cent at the beginning of the year. State Government figures to be released today show 95 per cent of the state is officially, or marginally, in drought. Coonamble, where residents were evacuated from their homes just a week ago to escape floods, is firmly in drought territory. The Mayor, Tim Horan, said the green pastures were an illusion: ”People refer to it as the green drought. We’re green on top but we’ve still got the drought underneath.” “While late December welcomed some of the best rain seen for many years across the central and northern areas of the state, it came too late to improve the January figures and has not yet been enough to turn around this devastating drought,” the Minister for Primary Industries and Rural Affairs, Steve Whan, said. ”The recent rainfall events occur against a backdrop of decade-long rainfall deficits and record high temperatures that have severely stressed water supplies.” The total NSW water storage level dropped 2.7 per cent from last month and now stands at 26.6 per cent of capacity, 1.2 per cent lower than the same time last year, he said. NSW is bracing for catastrophic fire conditions today, with eight of the state’s 21 fire regions declaring total fire bans. …

Floodwaters fail to stop drought’s creep across state