Did the weekend's weather live up to your predictions? What is your fail-safe formula for forecasting ?

We on the western plains pine for the smell of rain as it hits the dry earth, colliding with the golden dust. The sound of thunder booming across the sky and the first slow drops hitting the roof before a symphony of rain follows, singing us to sleep. 

The outback love affair with rain runs deeper than a drink for the crops or a reprieve from feeding or moving stock. Not only does it sustain life and livelihoods, the drops from the sky feed our senses; a phenomenon that we can see, smell, taste, touch and hear.

It is no wonder that the Australian bush is filled with folklore and an eye to the a latest techological tools, to feed our fascination with knowing when the next drop of rain will fall.

Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning

The old adage has jumped across cultures for centuries, and for good reason. The red sky is caused when the sun sits low on the horizon, allowing it to hit the dust and smoke particles of dry conditions in the atmosphere. This disturbs the blue light in the spectrum, leaving and emphasised red and yellow for our eyes to feast upon.

According to our friends at the Bureau of Meteorology, a red sky sunrise suggests that an area of high pressure and fine weather, with its trapped dust and other particles, has moved out towards to the east. This allows for an area of lower pressure and deteriorating weather—perhaps a cold front and band of rain—to move in from the west during the day.

On the other hand, a red sky sunset tells us the worst of the weather has now eased, with higher pressure and improving weather approaching from the west for the following day.

Across the tropics, including northern Australia, the 'red sky' proverb is an unreliable method to predict the weather. In these regions, weather patterns are often very localised, moving in no particular direction at all, and larger tropical weather systems usually move from east to west.

Aching Joints

In every family, there seems to be someone nursing an injury from a past life, certain that rain is on the horizon. While it’s easy to disregard it as your uncle wanting to bring up his football career as a young gun, there is in fact method to the madness.

Experts say that for some, the body experiences changes in barometric pressure when storms roll in, causing swelling of soft tissue or expanding of joint fluid. Likewise, barometric pressure takes a toll on some with arthritis of the joints.

Ant Activity

For some, all it takes is seeing ants move to higher ground to force them to bring in the washing off the line.

Others say that ants entering the house is proof enough that rain is imminent.

The biology of ants equips them with antennae that are capable of sensing the smallest of chemical traces or changes in temperature. The science, however, is not bulletproof, with little observational data proving the theory correct.

Regardless, the tiny creatures have built up an impressive emergency plan for flooding, being able to hold their breath for up to nine days.

Rainmaking Ceremonies

Surely, the best way to predict rain is to incite it yourself. In Australian Indigenous culture, rainmaking ceremonies provoke rain through rituals of song, dance and ceremony.

While records of the ceremonies are minimal, the 2017 film Putuparri and the Rainmakers follows Tom ‘Putuparri’ Lawford and captures his journey connecting with his culture and land as he watches a rainmaking ceremony, ending with a dramatic thunderstorm. 

In various cultures around the world, rainmaking ceremonies have incited various studies after mirroring a striking amount of weather events.

Bureau of Meteorology

Perhaps as reliable as the rest, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) supplies the weather forecasts that will make it to the news.

The BOM’s prediction methods are complex and utilise technology on earth, in the atmosphere, and in outer space. BOM gathers observations from air pressure, temperature, weather balloons and satellites. All of this feeds into their complex modelling for short and long term forecasting.

According to BOM, "the observations of many different elements that make up the weather paint a picture of how it has been recently, and how it is right now. This information is critical – to forecast the weather into the future, we need to know where to start from”.

This weekend has brought showers across the Western Plains, with rain on both Saturday and Sunday.

Perhaps you summoned it, felt it in your bones or watched as the ants took residence in your kitchen but the ritual of recording the actual amount of millimetres (or inches) in the rain gauge is the final proof in the prediction.

Falls ranged from around 5mm at Wanaaring to around 35.6mm at Trangie over the weekend. Other BOM recordings showed Cobar with 9.6mm, Coonabarabran 23.6mm, Condobolin 21.8mm, Collarenebri 15mm, 27mm at Coonamble, Walgett 19.8mm, Bourke 21mm, Gilgandra 19.6mm.