Every week the North West Star newsroom does its live Facebook show Elevenses every Monday at 11am, naturally enough.
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Each week we finish with a look at the weather, and pretty much every week for the last nine months, I've been forlornly hoping for rain.
"No rain again this week?" I would ask Sammy more in desperation than in hope.
And while no rain was no surprise in the winter months, I've had my fingers crossed for some wet stuff since November, only to be dashed week in week out.
There was apparently 2.2mm of rain on October 29 in Mount Isa but that must have been a blink and you'll miss it moment and in any case I was on holidays that week and did indeed miss it.
The next month brought even more fleeting falls, all of 0.6mm on November 22.
December didn't see a single drop in the Mount Isa gauge, though there were reports of a white Christmas with hail in the region.
And so far this month the weather gods have been toying with us with big storm clouds only producing falls that could best be described as dribbles.
There was 0.2mm on January 6 (no weather epiphany there), 1.2mm on January 9, 0.2mm on January 13, 1.6mm a day later and 1.2mm a day after that.
With temperatures reaching 43.4 Celcius, the rain has hardly had time to evaporate.
Then nothing officially till today as I write these words on Wednesday, January 22 (though I'm sure I got wet as I went for my run last night).
It began to rain around 1.30pm and for once it seemed as if it might be here to stay.
A full six mms landed by 4pm but sadly stopped again.
The forecast is for more of the same, a few millimetres here and there.
The long promised downpour we so desperately need remains frustratingly elusive.
As for the lakes, they are, well, treading water.
Lake Moondarra is now down to 45.1% (it pushed 90% last February) and Lake Julius is at 72.6%.
Neither is at crisis level yet but we need that monsoon...and soon. Derek Barry