Federation Drought
Encyclopedia
In Australia, the Federation Drought is the name given to a prolonged period of drought
that occurred around the time of Federation in 1901.
Though often thought of as a long drought, until the record dry year of 1902 the period was actually one of a number of very dry spells intercepted with wetter weather. Dry conditions gradually became established during the late 1890s and several dry areas joined together to create the end result of a drought covering over half the continent.
, Queensland
and to a lesser extent Victoria and the "settled" areas of Tasmania
and South Australia
. Lake Eyre
is believed to have filled with water from Cooper Creek
in 1886/1887, 1889/1890 and 1894.
The wet spell of the early 1890s ended earliest in the area between Melbourne and Sydney, where rainfall in 1894 was below normal even as much of inland Queensland and New South Wales had one of their wettest years on record. A very hot November with temperatures reaching 40 °C made the situation critical in some areas. Though Sydney had heavy rainfall in January and February 1895, from March that year drought began spreading widely across New South Wales and Victoria. The winter that year was the driest on record in Sydney, and despite a relieving fall during September, Sydney's rainfall for the period March to December was the third-lowest on record. In Victoria, extremely dry weather in October and November caused the failure of many wheat crops.
November was very wet in northern New South Wales, but still dry further south, whilst in the settled areas of South Australia dry conditions had been much worse, with no above-average rainfall since April.
April was particularly dry despite the breakdown of El Niño, as was May except in Gippsland, but June and July were very wet over inland New South Wales and northern Victoria (it was the wettest winter on record at some stations such as Nyngan and Echuca). August saw good rains shift to South Australia and coastal Victoria, but despite continued good rains in September and October over inland New South Wales water supplies did not really recover owing to a very dry November and a hot December in inland regions, which saw temperatures again reach 40°C in many parts of Victoria and not much less in Tasmania, where rainfall had again been deficient throughout the winter. Heavy rains on the North Coast of New South Wales were of little use to an agricultural sector that was seeing many inland properties demonstrably overstocked based on expectations of higher rainfall than was falling.
had over 400 mm (16 inches) in a day.
However, despite continued heavy rain and flooding in Queensland and the North Coast of New South Wales in March, extremely dry conditions were established over all the rest of southeastern Australia and good rains in South Australia during April and May had little effect inland despite producing heavy rain in Gippsland - which had been rainless since the beginning of the year apart from its February deluge.
Although a weak La Niña began developing and June was very wet over most of South Australia and inland Victoria, it was still dry in Tasmania and southern Victoria, and July was dry generally except in Tasmania and the southeast of South Australia. August, though wet in southwestern Australia and the west of New South Wales, was extremely dry in the worst-hit areas of southern Victoria, whilst useful September rains did little to ameliorate the situation there. November was very dry except in Tasmania and South Gippsland, and December even worse except in areas of the Mallee affected by thunderstorms.
Despite 1898 being wet over most of Queensland, it was very dry in the northwestern slopes of New South Wales and much of southern Victoria. in Melbourne, 1898 was the driest year until 1967, and in Orbost
it is still the third-driest year on record
With El Niño returning, however, May was very dry in most inland districts, but June was—welcomingly as it turned out—extremely wet in Victoria and northeastern South Australia. July, however, saw some of the coldest conditions on record in the grain country: in Melbourne, the mean minimum temperature of 3.8°C (38.8°F) is the lowest on record and in many places sub-zero minima were general on most days during July and August. Adelaide had its driest July on record with a total of only 10 millimetre (0.393700787401575 in).
The anticyclonic conditions, however, created a strong onshore flow that gave the cost of New South Wales almost continuous heavy rain: in Sydney the winter of 1899 was the second-wettest on record. Major flooding occurred on most coastal rivers.
Dry conditions continued throughout the rest of the year except on the coast of New South Wales, and only the heavy June falls prevented grain crops being a total failure. By the end of 1899, El Niño was already producing a very poor northern monsoon, and apart from the southeast December was unusually dry throughout Queensland, and also the Top End and Kimberley.
where the year proved the driest on record at many stations. In February, a major heatwave and dust-storms hit southeastern Australia.
Although the monsoon did not return in the north, March saw the beginning of a very wet period in Victoria, South Australia, and most of Western Australia as northwest cloudbands generated repeated heavy rain. With the associated troughs developing into low pressure systems in the Tasman Sea, Melbourne and most of South Gippsland had their wettest autumn on record. On 17 May, the Yarra River
was flooded and a few days later the torrential rain extended to Sydney and the south coast of New South Wales, which saw further heavy rain in June and July - in the latter case after most unseasonable rain had hit tropical northwestern Australia.
Tasmania and Queensland remained very dry as a result of missing the heavy autumn falls, and after some heavy rain in August over the settled areas of South Australia and southwestern Western Australia, dry conditions returned to the continent in a fashion more decisive than at any earlier stage of the drought. Almost the whole continent apart from the southeast of Western Australia was below average for the September to December period, with October being the third-driest on record in Brisbane. A promising season for the wheat and pastoral industries thus became mediocre at best.
March was wet over northwestern Queensland, the Moreton region, South Gippsland and Tasmania, but the rains did not extend into the dry reaches of the continent. Then, despite a torrential downpour (138mm in three days at Melbourne) producing another big Yarra flood in April, May to July was generally dry apart from June in the southeast of South Australia. During July, a huge cold outbreak produced record low maximum temperatures at many places. Snow
astonishingly fell as far north as Winton
and at Daylesford
the temperature on 26 July never rose above −2 °C (28 °F).
Heavy August rains over New South Wales and adjacent Queensland were no more than a temporary respite. Very dry conditions set in in September over inland New South Wales and from November across the whole continent as they had in the two previous years.
January and February were wet over Tasmania, but distinctly dry further north, and despite a heavy storm over southern Victoria and the settled areas of South Australia, March continued the trend of complete summer rainfall failure in New South Wales and Queensland. Most areas of those two states had their lowest rainfall for the November to March period on record, and April was even worse—being averaged over Australia, the driest month of the twentieth century, with a rainfall of only 3 millimetre (0.118110236220472 in). Sheep and cattle over the inland pastoral districts were already starving, and so extensive was the drought that agistment was not available in any place to which transport could be arranged. The result was that sheep died in numbers that have never been equalled before or since: some sources estimate that half the sheep population was lost in the drought.
Although in southwestern Australia—often looked upon as a "saviour" when the rains fail further east—the rainy season began on time in May, the dry weather continued without a break in the eastern states. Then, despite June being quite wet in southern Victoria, Tasmania and even parts of South Australia, the month's rain was associated with cold outbreaks that produced extremely severe frosts and several cases of low-level snowfalls. Oatlands
recorded a temperature as low as -12 C during one of these outbreaks, and snow fell in Hobart. Worse still, northern New South Wales and southern Queensland remained as dry as ever, and southwestern Australia was very dry.
Despite torrential rains in July around Eden
and heavy rains in the far southwest of Western Australia, rainless or near-rainless conditions continued elsewhere with extremely severe frosts. August was the driest-ever winter month in Perth with only 12 millimetre (0.47244094488189 in), and Melbourne, equally dry, set a record for lowest mean August minimum temperature at 4.5 °C (40.1 °F) broken only in 1944.
Though September was wet over southern Western Australia and a single heavy storm produced above-average rainfall in eastern Tasmania and southern Victoria, and October saw very heavy coastal rains in New South Wales (Sydney's 162 millimetres (6.38 in) on the 13th is still its wettest-ever October day), unrelenting dryness inland combined with hot northerly winds saw one of the worst dust-storms ever hit Melbourne on 12 November. Any hope for the wheat crop had gone as early as the end of August, and yields were close to the worst ever.
Although November 1902 later proved a very wet month in a band of country between about Southern Cross
and Jundah
, it was still very dry in more coastal areas.
The remainder of the 1902/1903 summer was disappointing and the monsoon generally weak (though parts of Queensland had heavy falls from cyclones) but from March onwards 1903 proved a generally wet year apart from coastal areas of New South Wales and East Gippsland. Cereal crops, which had constantly failed due to frost and lack of spring rainfall, were exceptionally good due to a wet September throughout southern Australia apart from Tasmania and the Western District. It was in these critical spring months where the rainfall deficiencies of the Federation Drought were concentrated, and the return of the spring rains was followed by a strong monsoon over tropical Australia: at Cooktown
and Kojonup
1903 is the wettest calendar year on record.
Overall for eastern states 1903 came out as the wettest year since 1894, even if its rainfalls were distinctly short of the high marks of the early 1890s except over western Victoria and parts of South Australia.
In East Gippsland and coastal regions of New South Wales the entire decade between 1901 and 1910 was consistently dry: Sydney did not exceed its long-term mean rainfall once, and Brisbane did so only twice between 1899 and 1915.
Other parts of eastern Australia, even with a significant improvement over falls between 1895 and 1902, rarely saw during the 1900s and 1910s rainfall nearly so heavy as during the early 1890s. Climatologists
today frequently view the Federation Drought as a major climate shift across eastern Australia from the wet period of the nineteenth century to a dry spell lasting until the middle 1940s. such an indication is found in many hydrological records, such as that of Lake George
near Canberra
and many coastal rivers in New South Wales.
Drought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
that occurred around the time of Federation in 1901.
Though often thought of as a long drought, until the record dry year of 1902 the period was actually one of a number of very dry spells intercepted with wetter weather. Dry conditions gradually became established during the late 1890s and several dry areas joined together to create the end result of a drought covering over half the continent.
Beginnings
Except for a widespread El Niño drought in 1888, the late 1880s and early 1890s were a period of extremely heavy rainfall over New South WalesNew South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
and to a lesser extent Victoria and the "settled" areas of Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
and South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
. Lake Eyre
Lake Eyre
Lake Eyre is the lowest point in Australia, at approximately below sea level, and, on the rare occasions that it fills, it is the largest lake in Australia and 18th largest in the world...
is believed to have filled with water from Cooper Creek
Cooper Creek
Cooper Creek is one of the most famous and yet least visited rivers in Australia. It is sometimes known as the Barcoo River from one of its tributaries and is one of three major Queensland river systems that flow into the Lake Eyre Basin...
in 1886/1887, 1889/1890 and 1894.
The wet spell of the early 1890s ended earliest in the area between Melbourne and Sydney, where rainfall in 1894 was below normal even as much of inland Queensland and New South Wales had one of their wettest years on record. A very hot November with temperatures reaching 40 °C made the situation critical in some areas. Though Sydney had heavy rainfall in January and February 1895, from March that year drought began spreading widely across New South Wales and Victoria. The winter that year was the driest on record in Sydney, and despite a relieving fall during September, Sydney's rainfall for the period March to December was the third-lowest on record. In Victoria, extremely dry weather in October and November caused the failure of many wheat crops.
1896
These years began with a hot spell and numerous bushfires especially in Gippsland, which had suffered two years of deficient rainfall. Heavy rains in February only broke the dorught temporarily, as El Niño developed later that year. Despite El Niño, drought-stricken Gippsland has one of its wettest winters on record as a series of storms produced torrential rains between Melbourne and Sydney—and around Hobart—in June and again in August. Early in September, huge floods occurred on East Gippsland streams as Orbost received 133.4 millimetres (5.3 in) in a day, but inland Victoria and New South Wales had been dry ever since May and the rest of September and October were almost completely dry, leading to another wheat crop failure.November was very wet in northern New South Wales, but still dry further south, whilst in the settled areas of South Australia dry conditions had been much worse, with no above-average rainfall since April.
1897
This year began with cool, moist summer weather in most of Victoria and New South Wales, but conditions in Queensland, which had continued to have heavy rain during the "wet" season in 1895 and 1896 became drier. In inland districts the first transition to drought began as February and March were distinctly dry.April was particularly dry despite the breakdown of El Niño, as was May except in Gippsland, but June and July were very wet over inland New South Wales and northern Victoria (it was the wettest winter on record at some stations such as Nyngan and Echuca). August saw good rains shift to South Australia and coastal Victoria, but despite continued good rains in September and October over inland New South Wales water supplies did not really recover owing to a very dry November and a hot December in inland regions, which saw temperatures again reach 40°C in many parts of Victoria and not much less in Tasmania, where rainfall had again been deficient throughout the winter. Heavy rains on the North Coast of New South Wales were of little use to an agricultural sector that was seeing many inland properties demonstrably overstocked based on expectations of higher rainfall than was falling.
1898
The heatwave conditions over December 1897 continued early this year as Melbourne set a still-standing record mean maximum for February of 30.2 °C (86.5 °F). The northeast of New South Wales was deluged by moist easterly winds and a low-pressure system that moved over inland Victoria with valuable rain later gave the South Coast some of the heaviest rainfall ever known in Australia: BegaBega, New South Wales
Bega is a town in the south-east of New South Wales, Australia in the Bega Valley Shire. It is the economic centre for the Bega Valley.-Place name:One claim is that place name Bega is derived from the local Aboriginal word meaning "big camping ground"....
had over 400 mm (16 inches) in a day.
However, despite continued heavy rain and flooding in Queensland and the North Coast of New South Wales in March, extremely dry conditions were established over all the rest of southeastern Australia and good rains in South Australia during April and May had little effect inland despite producing heavy rain in Gippsland - which had been rainless since the beginning of the year apart from its February deluge.
Although a weak La Niña began developing and June was very wet over most of South Australia and inland Victoria, it was still dry in Tasmania and southern Victoria, and July was dry generally except in Tasmania and the southeast of South Australia. August, though wet in southwestern Australia and the west of New South Wales, was extremely dry in the worst-hit areas of southern Victoria, whilst useful September rains did little to ameliorate the situation there. November was very dry except in Tasmania and South Gippsland, and December even worse except in areas of the Mallee affected by thunderstorms.
Despite 1898 being wet over most of Queensland, it was very dry in the northwestern slopes of New South Wales and much of southern Victoria. in Melbourne, 1898 was the driest year until 1967, and in Orbost
Orbost, Victoria
Orbost is a town in the Shire of East Gippsland, Victoria, Australia, located east of Melbourne and south of Canberra where the Princes Highway crosses the Snowy River. It is about from the town of Marlo on the coast of Bass Strait. At the 2006 census, Orbost had a population of 2452...
it is still the third-driest year on record
1899
This year saw southern Victoria and Tasmania have heavy rains in January, as did Queensland, whilst February and March - though dry in New South Wales - again saw good rains there as cold fronts linked with tropical moisture. March and April saw heavy rains in southern Victoria continue, but these months were still dry in inland New South Wales and Queensland.With El Niño returning, however, May was very dry in most inland districts, but June was—welcomingly as it turned out—extremely wet in Victoria and northeastern South Australia. July, however, saw some of the coldest conditions on record in the grain country: in Melbourne, the mean minimum temperature of 3.8°C (38.8°F) is the lowest on record and in many places sub-zero minima were general on most days during July and August. Adelaide had its driest July on record with a total of only 10 millimetre (0.393700787401575 in).
The anticyclonic conditions, however, created a strong onshore flow that gave the cost of New South Wales almost continuous heavy rain: in Sydney the winter of 1899 was the second-wettest on record. Major flooding occurred on most coastal rivers.
Dry conditions continued throughout the rest of the year except on the coast of New South Wales, and only the heavy June falls prevented grain crops being a total failure. By the end of 1899, El Niño was already producing a very poor northern monsoon, and apart from the southeast December was unusually dry throughout Queensland, and also the Top End and Kimberley.
1900
The early part of this year saw one of the most complete monsoon failures in the north of Australia, especially in normally wet Cape York PeninsulaCape York Peninsula
Cape York Peninsula is a large remote peninsula located in Far North Queensland at the tip of the state of Queensland, Australia, the largest unspoilt wilderness in northern Australia and one of the last remaining wilderness areas on Earth...
where the year proved the driest on record at many stations. In February, a major heatwave and dust-storms hit southeastern Australia.
Although the monsoon did not return in the north, March saw the beginning of a very wet period in Victoria, South Australia, and most of Western Australia as northwest cloudbands generated repeated heavy rain. With the associated troughs developing into low pressure systems in the Tasman Sea, Melbourne and most of South Gippsland had their wettest autumn on record. On 17 May, the Yarra River
Yarra River
The Yarra River, originally Birrarung, is a river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches...
was flooded and a few days later the torrential rain extended to Sydney and the south coast of New South Wales, which saw further heavy rain in June and July - in the latter case after most unseasonable rain had hit tropical northwestern Australia.
Tasmania and Queensland remained very dry as a result of missing the heavy autumn falls, and after some heavy rain in August over the settled areas of South Australia and southwestern Western Australia, dry conditions returned to the continent in a fashion more decisive than at any earlier stage of the drought. Almost the whole continent apart from the southeast of Western Australia was below average for the September to December period, with October being the third-driest on record in Brisbane. A promising season for the wheat and pastoral industries thus became mediocre at best.
1901
The monsoon in Queensland was again very poor apart from the Wet Tropics and Cape York, and in February an extremely active and vigorous monsoon low over inland South Australia brought further east not rain but a disastrous heatwave with Melbourne reporting its hottest February temperature (43.1 degrees Celsius) until 1983.March was wet over northwestern Queensland, the Moreton region, South Gippsland and Tasmania, but the rains did not extend into the dry reaches of the continent. Then, despite a torrential downpour (138mm in three days at Melbourne) producing another big Yarra flood in April, May to July was generally dry apart from June in the southeast of South Australia. During July, a huge cold outbreak produced record low maximum temperatures at many places. Snow
Snow
Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by...
astonishingly fell as far north as Winton
Winton, Queensland
-Qantas:Winton was one of the founding towns of the Australian airline Qantas. The first board meeting was held at the Winton Club on 10 February 1921.-Waltzing Matilda:...
and at Daylesford
Daylesford
The name Daylesford is borne by a number of settlements:*Daylesford, Victoria, Australia*Daylesford, Gloucestershire, England*Daylesford, Pennsylvania, United States**Daylesford , a commuter rail station...
the temperature on 26 July never rose above −2 °C (28 °F).
Heavy August rains over New South Wales and adjacent Queensland were no more than a temporary respite. Very dry conditions set in in September over inland New South Wales and from November across the whole continent as they had in the two previous years.
1902
Although dry conditions had been a feature over significant parts of the continent since 1894, it was only this year that large-scale drought began to become genuinely disastrous.January and February were wet over Tasmania, but distinctly dry further north, and despite a heavy storm over southern Victoria and the settled areas of South Australia, March continued the trend of complete summer rainfall failure in New South Wales and Queensland. Most areas of those two states had their lowest rainfall for the November to March period on record, and April was even worse—being averaged over Australia, the driest month of the twentieth century, with a rainfall of only 3 millimetre (0.118110236220472 in). Sheep and cattle over the inland pastoral districts were already starving, and so extensive was the drought that agistment was not available in any place to which transport could be arranged. The result was that sheep died in numbers that have never been equalled before or since: some sources estimate that half the sheep population was lost in the drought.
Although in southwestern Australia—often looked upon as a "saviour" when the rains fail further east—the rainy season began on time in May, the dry weather continued without a break in the eastern states. Then, despite June being quite wet in southern Victoria, Tasmania and even parts of South Australia, the month's rain was associated with cold outbreaks that produced extremely severe frosts and several cases of low-level snowfalls. Oatlands
Oatlands, Tasmania
Oatlands is an important historical village built on the shores of Lake Dulverton in the centre of Tasmania, Australia. Oatlands is located 84 km north of Hobart and 115 km south of Launceston on the Midland Highway...
recorded a temperature as low as -12 C during one of these outbreaks, and snow fell in Hobart. Worse still, northern New South Wales and southern Queensland remained as dry as ever, and southwestern Australia was very dry.
Despite torrential rains in July around Eden
Eden, New South Wales
Eden is a coastal town in the South Coast region of New South Wales, Australia. The town, south of the state capital Sydney near the border with Victoria, is located between Nullica Bay to the south and Calle Calle Bay, the northern reach of Twofold Bay, and built on undulating land adjacent to a...
and heavy rains in the far southwest of Western Australia, rainless or near-rainless conditions continued elsewhere with extremely severe frosts. August was the driest-ever winter month in Perth with only 12 millimetre (0.47244094488189 in), and Melbourne, equally dry, set a record for lowest mean August minimum temperature at 4.5 °C (40.1 °F) broken only in 1944.
Though September was wet over southern Western Australia and a single heavy storm produced above-average rainfall in eastern Tasmania and southern Victoria, and October saw very heavy coastal rains in New South Wales (Sydney's 162 millimetres (6.38 in) on the 13th is still its wettest-ever October day), unrelenting dryness inland combined with hot northerly winds saw one of the worst dust-storms ever hit Melbourne on 12 November. Any hope for the wheat crop had gone as early as the end of August, and yields were close to the worst ever.
Although November 1902 later proved a very wet month in a band of country between about Southern Cross
Southern Cross, Western Australia
Southern Cross is a town in Western Australia, 371 kilometres east of Perth on the Great Eastern Highway. It was founded by gold prospectors in 1888, and gazetted in 1890. It is the major town and administrative centre of the Shire of Yilgarn...
and Jundah
Jundah, Queensland
Jundah is a town in far western Queensland, Australia. The administrative centre of the Barcoo Shire Local Government Area, the town is located on the Thomson River, west of the state capital, Brisbane. At the 2006 census, Jundah had a population of 93....
, it was still very dry in more coastal areas.
Aftermath
December 1902 proved the first month since 1898 when most of the continent had heavy rain. Indeed, in southwestern Victoria many stations had their highest daily rainfall on record, resulting in flash flooding. Only the Kimberley, the North Coast of New South Wales and Western Tasmania remained below average.The remainder of the 1902/1903 summer was disappointing and the monsoon generally weak (though parts of Queensland had heavy falls from cyclones) but from March onwards 1903 proved a generally wet year apart from coastal areas of New South Wales and East Gippsland. Cereal crops, which had constantly failed due to frost and lack of spring rainfall, were exceptionally good due to a wet September throughout southern Australia apart from Tasmania and the Western District. It was in these critical spring months where the rainfall deficiencies of the Federation Drought were concentrated, and the return of the spring rains was followed by a strong monsoon over tropical Australia: at Cooktown
Cooktown, Queensland
Cooktown is a small town located at the mouth of the Endeavour River, on Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland where James Cook beached his ship, the Endeavour, for repairs in 1770. At the 2006 census, Cooktown had a population of 1,336...
and Kojonup
Kojonup, Western Australia
Kojonup is a town located 256 km south-east of Perth, Western Australia along Albany Highway.The name Kojonup is believed to refer to the "Kodja" or stone axe made by Indigenous Australians from the local stone....
1903 is the wettest calendar year on record.
Overall for eastern states 1903 came out as the wettest year since 1894, even if its rainfalls were distinctly short of the high marks of the early 1890s except over western Victoria and parts of South Australia.
In East Gippsland and coastal regions of New South Wales the entire decade between 1901 and 1910 was consistently dry: Sydney did not exceed its long-term mean rainfall once, and Brisbane did so only twice between 1899 and 1915.
Other parts of eastern Australia, even with a significant improvement over falls between 1895 and 1902, rarely saw during the 1900s and 1910s rainfall nearly so heavy as during the early 1890s. Climatologists
Climatology
Climatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences...
today frequently view the Federation Drought as a major climate shift across eastern Australia from the wet period of the nineteenth century to a dry spell lasting until the middle 1940s. such an indication is found in many hydrological records, such as that of Lake George
Lake George (New South Wales)
Lake George is a lake in south-eastern New South Wales, Australia about 30 minutes drive north-east of Canberra along the Federal Highway en route to Sydney.-Geography / Geology:...
near Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
and many coastal rivers in New South Wales.