6/8/2005 8:15:02 PM Pacific Standard Time

Today I noticed several articles in your site about disappearing lakes,
and although that isn't happening here in drought gripped N.S.W in
Australia something even stranger than that is. Water is starting to
flow in two streams near where I live. One after four years of no
water at all. The two stories are quoted from and linked below.

Why this water disappearing and reappearing is of interest is that
prior to the deadly Tangshan earthquake in China back in 1976
water in wells were noticed to be rising and falling for sometime
prior  to the 'quake which killed a quarter of a million in a minute
or so. Forward to just prior to the 9.3 earthquake which caused
the tsunami that saw the end of an estimated 300,000 last December.
You had articles that referred to wells in the eastern U.S. that had
been rising and falling too before the 27th of December.

Regards
Orange, N.S.W. Australia.



*Hope springs eternal*
By Brian Wood
Wednesday, 8 June 2005

HEATHER Stocks never used to believe in miracles. She does now.

For the past four years the creek which runs through her property near
O'Connell has been bone dry, courtesy of the worst drought in a century.
However, in recent weeks that's all changed.

Now the creek's starting to flow again, filling once-empty watering
holes as a gradual flow makes its way down the previously lifeless stream.




*Signs of rain*
By NICK REDMOND
Thursday, 9 June 2005

JET streams, busy ants, rivers running and springs opening.

Portents of rain for some have coincided with Bureau of Meteorology
predictions some rain is headed towards the Central West.

As the drought has tightened its grip, Colin Thorley has watched the
Bell River slow, stop and stagnate into ever diminishing pools.

But now, inexplicably, it has begun to run.

Hardly a flood, Mr Thorley is quick to point out, but it is moving again.

Mr Thorley, a groundsman at Belgravia, a 5000-acre vineyard and mixed
farming enterprise north of Orange, said the river had not moved for at
least six months.

"I've heard blokes saying that as the temperature drops everything
contracts and the springs open up. On the other side of it there are all
those old tales about ants and other things. Where we used to live in
Boree Lane there was a spring that used to weep out when it was about to
rain," he said.

A Bureau of Meteorology officer said there was a front coming through
that should bring some rain on Saturday but it was likely to only be
about 10mm.

"It might come in again on Monday. We got a phone call this morning
(about springs opening) but I have no idea what that means," he said.

The Institute of Global Environment and Society, a US based research and
forecasting organisation, predicts rainfall on Saturday in the Central
West of up to 25mm.

Orange stock and station agent Don Wright said talk about ants, springs,
jet streams and rivers was not new.

He believes springs opening are related to atmospheric pressure.

"With low pressure the water comes to the top ... They've been up and
running and on and off for a while now," he said.

"There's all different sayings. You just have to work out the right
ones. It's the old story mate. A bloke used to say to me about weather
forecasters, 'they know one day, we know the next'."

Lance Stanford, a Cargo road land holder and former orchardist, has
noticed ants getting busy and an increase in the number of jet streams
left across the sky.

He conceded they were weather predictors considered as folklore by many
but they were not without merit.

"I don't know if we're right but I bloody hope we are ... I'm 76 in
August and it's the driest I've ever seen it round here," he said.

But for a few jet streams and some cloud the sky remained predominantly
clear and blue yesterday.

"I'd hate to be selling rain coats and rubber boots," Mr Stanford said.

Yesterday, 91 per cent of NSW was declared in drought, with much of the
State recording its lowest rainfall on record.

Releasing the monthly drought figures,