'When The Rain Tumbles Down In July' ( song written by Aussie C&W artist Slim Dusty in 1946 )
Lyrics
'Let me wander north to the homestead,
Way out further on there to roam,
By a gully in flood let me linger,
When the summery sunshine has flown.
Where the logs tangle up on the creek bed,
And clouds veil the old northern sky,
And the cattle move back from the lowlands,
When the rain tumbles down in July.
The settlers with sad hearts are watching,
The rise of the stream from the dawn,
Their best crops are always in flood reach,
If it rises much more they'll be gone.
The cattle string out along the fences,
The wind from the south races by,
And the limbs from the old gums are fallin',
When the rain tumbles down in July.
The sleeping gums on the hillside,
Awaken to herds straying by,
From the flats where the fences have vanished,
As the storm clouds gather on high.
The wheels of the wagons stop turning,
The stock horse is turned out to stray,
The old station dogs are a dozin',
On the husks in the barn through the day.
The drover draws rein by the river,
It's years since he's seen it so high,
Yes and that's just a story of homeward,
When the rain tumbles down in July'.
Rare July Rain Soaks Far Western Queensland
{ Source: Weatherzone )
Parts of Western Qld are already having their wettest July on record after copping 10 to 15 times their monthly average rainfall in the last 24 hours.
A northwest cloudband has been causing rain in far Western Qld since Friday, although the heaviest falls in most areas have been occurring from Sunday into Monday morning.
Some of the most notable rainfall totals during the 24 hours to 9am on Monday included:
64.4 mm at Cloncurry Airport, which is about 15 times the site’s July monthly average of 4.3 mm. This is also Cloncurry’s wettest July day since at least 1978
Mount Isa Airport’s 78.4 mm is 13 times their July monthly average. It’s also the wettest July day observed at either the Airport or old Post Office weather stations in records dating back to 1926
Birdsville 15.8mm, its heaviest July rain since 1998
Daytime temperatures have also been suppressed by the widespread cloudcover. As of 4pm AEST on Monday, maximum temperatures were running around 8 to 12ºC below average in parts of the Gulf Country, Northern Goldfields, Central West, Northwest and Channel Country Districts.
Looking ahead, cloud and rain will continue to spread across most of Qld from west to east on Monday night and throughout Tuesday, before clearer weather returns to most areas from Wednesday.
The map below shows how much rain one forecast model is predicting on Monday and Tuesday combined.
The recent rain has closed a number of roads in Western Qld.
