weather conditions in kimberley's

I wouldnt be too worried about the GRR... Rivers arnt a huge concern around there at that time of the year no matter what sort of weather there has been leading up to it...
Doesnt take long for water to ebate up there...
But having said that,,, if you get to a point where you cant get past,,, go somewhere else instead...
It is all good....

Last year even with all the rain around Cape York,,, i was asking questions all year leading up to our trip,,,, and everyone was saying dont come up,,,,then when we got to Bramwell,,, they were still saying dont even attempt it....

So we wernt going to attempt it....but we thought we would have a little look at the first river crossing,,,, and then one led to the next and before we knew it we had got to the end and nothing was as bad as they said....
So the bottom line is just go and see for yourself..

Long range forcasts are always x% of type of things. I did read somewhere (maybe the BOM site in the bit on El Ninio Events) that El Ninio tends to make the wet later and wetter. Anyway, don't think June would be an issue. If it is move to plan B. We have found that plan B is essential in tropical areas. Several times places we were going to stay had been completely destroyed in the wet.

Unfortunately, you usually need to have a look for yourself. Good example was we were looking at using the Batavia Downs short cut from Wiepa. Someone with the same car as us told us the first crossing was impassable without a Land Cruiser (we had a Jack at the time). We went and had a look the next day. Yep, wheel ruts were a bit deep. 20 minutes with a shovel and we drove across. Depends a lot on your skills and knowledge. Others try things that I would not even think of doing. Fine, they hopefully have the skills and knowledge to do so. If not they get stuck then hopefully they have the gear etc to get out. I'm just slack and don't look at 6 hours winching along a 2km bog as an enjoyable way to spend the day, others do.

Steve

Poppy

You should go to BOM site in the first place. Its all science.

Its all pretty hard ground in the Kimberley and by July even harder. You could get into strife crossing a river though.

The drought is concentrated more in south eastern Australia. Go to the BOM site and look at the past 36 month weather analysis.

Normally the WET/MONSOON in the far north is pretty consistent. It starts raining in September and usually finishes up by end April. How much it rains depends a bit on the El Nino effect.

When we did the Kimberley in 1986 there had been good rains in June and all the waterfalls were running when we visited in July but all rivers were fordable in a Suzuki.

Cheers

Hi PoppyG,

So far the wet has been it's normal unpredictable self, the area around Drysdale ( central North Kimberley) has been exceptionally dry.
The BOM site says something along the lines of El Nino being in effect but moving away and a greater than normal chance of later rains this year.
I never believe it till it happens but I will say that several times when we have had very small rain till end of Feb ( so far we have only had about 360 mm total wet ) it has then poured down in March and even early April. One year it was real dry by end March so got staff in and were ready to open by about 8 th April just waiting on road to be opened, cyclone went past down coast and by 13 th April the Drysdale River was 27 meters deep at crossing. The road didn't even open till 9 th June, this is the only time in over 20 years I have seen it that late. June is normally pretty safe but honestly I have long given up expecting to have a ' normal ' wet season, there is no such thing !
All that can be said is Drysdale will get between 600 mm and 1500mm and it will fall between Oct & April and it can be steady and evenly spread or nothing much for weeks at a time and then almost all the rain then falls in a couple of huge dumps only which can happen at any time over the wet.
It's not so much a mater of bogged or not anymore, it's if the road has been legally opened or not. Everyone is so sick of a few people making a huge bog mess of the road by trying to force through before it's dry enough to take traffic, they are getting much tougher with fines and I am sure the local shire is becomming more pro active re stopping it happening.
We now simply don't open, won't serve at all, till the day the road legally opens.
I wish I knew what it may do just as much if not more than you do. Every year we are either ready too early ( waste of wages) or a mad panic to open same day as the road does. Takes a lot of work to re open after 6 months closed and takes a while to do it, so advance knoweldge would be great !
June is normally nice even if we do get a small wet as the water won't have gone by then and the chance of it being too wet to get through is pretty low especially if it's later in June you refer to.
cheers, Anne