Australians are extremely conscious of the weather. People who live in England say " it's fine " if it is not actually raining. Australians usually call it " a fine day " only when the sun is shining. On the average, over the country, this is 230 days out of the 365 days in the year.
Rainfall is recorded throughout Australia and on the national radio regular weather information is given including forecasts, rainfall figures and the changing depth of water in the larger rivers.
Even in water the warmth of the sun can be felt and in summer it is often very hot . At such times it is forbidden to light fires in the open. In spite of precautions forest fires do break out , sometimes caused by lightning.
Australia is a land of sun and clear bright light. The characteristic sky is a hard, bright blue.
To the man on the land , the sun is often the destroyer as well as the giver of life. For weeks and even months the man on the land may watch the sky for clouds. When the clouds do come, they may pass over without dropping their rain because the mountains are not high enough to catch them .
Because Australia is not generally mountainous and because the highlands are near the sea, many of the rivers are short. Australia has few big rivers which flow continuously. Although lines are drawn on the maps to indicate rivers, in some Australian rivers water flows only after heavy rain. During dry seasons they are no more than a series of waterholes. In wet seasons they can flood many hundreds of square kilometers. It is a fact that on the average more water flows down the Amur River in China than down all the river systems of Australia taken together.