Rom - about #1 the sweaty palms! I get sweaty palms just thinking about the rain, but then again my aunty is Dutch

Seriously tho' my left arm was broken when I was 13 and it ALWAYS aches just before (heavy) rain right on the break site. (So far it's fine)

Springs starting to run on our farm and two neighbors over the last 2-3 weeks. Some have been dry for months.

And that's one of the smartest comments I've ever heard. The older I get the dumber I become. Good read this thread, thanks to all for contributing.

Blizz
PS: ROM, I used to date a farm girl from Quamby (Gredgwin) many years ago and knew folk in Horsham, Donald etc.

Hear hear Blizz!! Well said ROM, very well said indeed!

UPDATE OF SPRING/SOAK LIST 2007:
(1) ROM Horsham: springs/soak up approx 5/4/07
getting stronger 12/4/07
(2) Pepsi-Max Meadows Adelaide Hills: Springs in deeper gullies started flowing early April 2007
(3) Shayne b/ Frontera Granite Belt QLD: Springs on Low side of a property Granite Downs QLD 1st April approx 2007
(4) Coffee3190 Toowoomba QLD: Spring in dam started flowing and filling up Dam approx say 11th April 2007.
(5) HillsHolts: Up and running well Coleraine, SW Western Coast/Plains sometime before 16th April 2007.
(6) HillsHolts: Running Springs SE West Coast, VIC for past 3 to 4 weeks before 19th April 2007.
(7) Alexia: Neighbours springs running for 2 to 3 weeks Corryong, VIC before 20th April 2007.

Getting quite a list now and the weather seems to be building up nicely for decent rains too!

Any more additions please post in, thanks, interesting stuff, and I will keep the list up to date, together with any I hear of as well.

That's absolutely fascinating Ian, you're right the weather patterns have certainly started building quite rapidly for future rain prospect. Perhaps there is some sort of genuine link here not sure what it could possibly be something mysterious that we haven't discovered yet possibly, more research is required IMO. Could be just coincidence as this is when the season traditionally breaks around Late April/early May but it is definitely worth further discussion.

Springs started running Near Beachport a couple of weeks ago reports our "Border Watch" person from the Lower SE of SA.

I have also compiled the spring reports anonymously on my easily accessable web-site for future reference and will do this every year here and there as it is of interest and research.
http://users.senet.com.au/~holton7/article2.htm
If anyone does not wish their report on there, please advise. Thanks again for the reports interesting exercise for sure, as the reports are from so widespread an area of Australia, and especially as the weather seems to be playing ball also, and is looking very Autumn Rainfall Breakish from mid to late next week 25th-26th onwards!

The springs on my farm at Bredbo started running yesterday, so rain not to far away now :bounce: :bounce:

I'm a farmer, in my fifties. I've heard this one for ever. It's crap. I've never seen anyone actually show a spring run after dry weather, before a rain event. (Maybe the dog pissed on the other side of the ute.) Just once - it wouldn't be hard - put in a test site and do proper measurements for a couple of seasons. Even better, try to do some blind/double blind set up like medical trials because with all the superstitious convictions out there I'm sure many (no on this thread of course) will always see what they believe.

Sorry to prove you wrong JohnB but for the last 3 years the springs have started running a week or so before we get a decent rain. I never used to believe it either, but since I have had the farm it has happened.
If you think it is cr&p then so be it, but it has proven correct for me the last 3 years.

I was being a bit intemperate there, perhaps. But the point remains; there are any number of old wives tales, superstitions,folklore call them what you will. If they're helpful to individuals in making sense of the world, so be it. But the fact remains that if there's any doubt about an assertion (and there bloody well is in this case)there are well established processes for testing it and sharing the results. It's called scientific method. Anecdotes, no matter how heartfelt won't cut it and most certainly don't constitute "proof".

Well we have 9 springs running this year JohnB, ( see earlier posts) in different parts of the country all around the same time, and the break is looking as if it will well line up with the expected result ie 1 to 4 weeks from the sightings...and I have many farmer clients who swear by it all. I will keep these observation and results going each year for the next 5 years or keep them going as long as I can, till I cark it!....... and we shall soon see what the truth is...that is the idea of this thread! I have also seen it with my own eyes in 1997 a week before a July break! So maybe wait and see what the results are before canning it!

Ian, collecting stories is no doubt a good start. Indeeed maybe there is after all a sensible explanation that encompasses your belief in this phenomonon and my belief that I live in a sane universe where cause precedes effect. In fifty years here I've never seen it actually happen, to my satisfaction, although I know lots of farmers and others who swear by springs as an accurate middle range forecasting tool (along with ducks building nests in trees and rabbits not having litters because the burrows will be flooded etc). Whenever I've been shown the spring in question "it just hapened to have dried up again", or it's only a muddy hole that looks like its been there for ages, or when you look back there actually has been enough rain a while before for some groundflow. But I'll say it again: this is a practical question which proper study could establish or deny. Collection of anonymous anecdotes isn't good enough. If you haven't got the skills to do a proper, open study using scientific methodology (and I'm afraid I'm not going to bother) why not ask a hydrologist? (*Not* a water diviner!)

JohnB well you have your opinion which you have expressed.
We will continue to do our little anonymous survey...but why should anyone bother to tell of springs coming up when at the time of the start of this thread no rain was in sight. 9 persons have reported in so far, and thanks to them. They are decent, honest hard working farming people mostly and I admire them and respect their honesty...why question them!
We did not do this thread as a scientific money based survey or advertise it as such.
We are all just looking with interest to see if this spring and rain thing is of any use, and while it is only come from farmers tale's over the years past so far, I have found much truth and deep insight from people who make a living out of the earth watch nature, skies, heavens, etc, every day and observe such things all the time. They are in touch with much reality that people sitting in an office do not see.
This was not mooted as a scientific study, we are all just doing this out of interest, and the results are showing a lot of interesting results, and it could well be spot on for 2007!
We are doing this only for our interest and own selves, and we are all having a good time reading and hearing of all the springs, etc.......
if you want to do a serious study, go for it. We don't want agro, we just want to enjoy this posting thread in reality. If you think we are fooling ourselves, well so be it.......we will think what we like also, and so be it! Let us just enjoy a simple interesting thread and not have to worry about agro stuff, thanks!

Yes HillsHolts I agree, it's very interesting and I find nothing wrong with reading this for our own interest. There are tons of folklore regarding weather that have been correct and I personally think there is something in this. I've never experienced it myself, but I did a quick Google search, yet sadly couldn't find much about it.

There are lots of things we don't know about how our planet works and this is one of them. Hopefully soon our questions will be answered.

:cheers:

Hang on. This isn't meant to be about flaming. I have absolutely no intention of questioning anyone's honesty or integrity (although I'm slightly bemused by HillsHolts' reference to his respondents being "mostly" decent, honest and hardworking!!) My pointing out that science is the means by which debatable hypotheses can become accepted knowlege is hardly agro even if he says it twice. If you only want the thread to be an opportunity for a yarn, sage nodding of heads and so on, then fine. I do as much of that myself as anybody else. Just don't expect that this will reasonably convince others. My point is that the hypothesis about springs is a common one and that could no doubt easily be tested. I'm not interested in trying because I think it is rubbish ... but if you could prove me wrong I would be terribly pleased and impressed! Better than that, you'd give the Bureau a powerful and much needed medium term forecasting tool and you'd become famous! But you won't get that far by collecting anonymous accounts of undefined water flows within the continent and then noticing that an autumn break actually does happen even if you "keep doing it until you cark it". Don't get me wrong though - I do think that what Ian is doing helps to raise an issue and starts to formulate a hypothesis, and that this is well worth doing as a starting point if you want to explore the issue. Which I don't. 'nuff from me. 8mm rain last night and I'm off to see if I can see some flows!

Isn't it great to sit on the fence and throw a few stones?

Springs up at Lake Bolac Western Plains 19th April 2007...been dry since Spring last year!

A couple of other short term, rain predicting phenomena; 70 odd years ago, my grandparents used to be able to predict that rain was only 3 or 4 days away as they could suddenly and clearly hear trains rumbling across a railway bridge some 14 kms away from their home.
In my case, we are only a couple of hundred metres from a rail line in Horsham but rarely hear the trains until again, a couple of days before rain they start to go through the car port or at least sound like it!
My old grandmother used to say "When the distant hills are looking nigh then rain is not far away". The distant hills in this case where the Grampians mountains, some 80 kms to the south.

[ Disclaimer; The above rain predicting phenomena, together with other rain predicting phenomena such as natural springs starting to flow and etc, along with certain physical phenomena i.e. gravity, have been claimed to have been observed by numerous rational and intelligent persons.
No suitable and fully acceptable scientific explanations of these claimed observed phenomena, including gravity, currently exist.
As there is no acceptable explanations, suitable tests cannot be formulated.
As tests cannot be formulated, the phenomena cannot be adequately tested for their actual existence.
As they cannot be tested for their existence, they cannot be accepted as genuine phenomena and therefore observed.
As they cannot be observed then they must not exist.
Despite the above, numerous rational and intelligent persons claimed to have observed......................! ]