Heavy rains finally hit fire-stricken Australia, bringing desperate relief

Over the past few weeks, Australia has been the victim of intense wildfires. The nation's emergency response resources were put to the test as sadly many animals succumbed to the bushfires and citizens were forced to flee their homes. Now, the country has finally received some temporary relief in the form of heavy rainfall. Months worth of rain has poured down on the areas affected by the wildfires, helping firefighters catch a much-needed break. Despite this, forecasters have warned that long-term relief is not set to arrive until later this year, hopefully by the month of March, The Telegraph reports.

Eastern Australia was most benefitted by the rainfall that poured down on Thursday. More wet weather is in the forecast for the near future, but the country's emergency response services should not rely solely on the rainfall to control the current environmental crisis. Further to this, rains that can actually douse out all the blazes currently burning through Australian wildlife should only be expected in March, experts suggest, when a more sustained rainfall is predicted to help control and perhaps even terminate the bushfires. In the meantime, the hot weather hyphenated with an occasional period of light rain has actually done more harm than good.

Nonetheless, the downpours in the state of New South Wales have brought new hope. Firefighters believe the dozens of fires still burning can thus be brought under some control in the short-term. The state's Rural Fire Service affirmed in a social media post, "Relief is here for a number of firefighters working across New South Wales. Although this rain won't extinguish all fires, it will certainly go a long way towards containment." The weather forecast predicts even more rain on Friday as well as over the weekend. If the rainfall does occur, it will be the longest sustained period of rainfall to pour down on Australia ever since the crisis began in September last year.

Sadly, forecasts following this week include more periods of dry and hot weather. On a yearly basis, the months of January, February, and March are typically the hottest in Australia. But from March 1 through to May 30, the weather is expected to cool down. According to Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, there is a 50 percent probability that a large chunk of the country's eastern regions will receive average rainfall throughout this period. However, in order to recover from three years of drought in this region, more rains will be required. The Bureau explained in an email statement, "While outlooks for drier than average conditions have eased compared to those issued for late 2019, several months of above-average rainfall are needed to see a recovery from current long-term rainfall deficiencies." Hopefully, these forecasts serve as a much-needed wake-up call to Australia's government about the problematic role of humans in the devastating effects of climate change.