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 History of Meteorology 4 (2008)  1 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

El Niño, Irrigation Dams and Stopbanks: 
 

Examining the repercussions of the 1876-78 El Niño 
in Australia and New Zealand 

 
Don Garden 

 
Australian Centre for the Study of Science, Innovation and Society  

and School of Historical Studies 
University of Melbourne 

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 
 
 

Our telegrams to-day still inform us of drought in the South [Island of New 
Zealand], of inconvenience and suffering to the people from want of water, and of 
imminent danger that there will be a considerable falling off in the harvest… In 
the North, though under a hotter sun than shines in Otago or Canterbury, we have 
as yet felt but little inconvenience from the drought, which has, indeed, been not 
so prolonged as in the South.  The rainfall has, however, been considerably less 
than for the average of years.  Last night, there were symptoms that wet weather 
was approaching, but it may be some days distant. It is somewhat singular that of 
late a great part of the world has been tormented by drought.  The famine in India 
was caused by the failure of the periodical rains; the suffering and loss in 
Australia has been great; Egypt is threatened with scarcity, owing to the scanty 
overflow of the Nile; and we observe by the papers received last mail that the 
people of New York were alarmed that the Croton supply was about to fail.1  
 
 
The famine in Southern India continues to be very severe, and it is much feared 
that the July and August crops will be a comparative failure, in which case the 
pressure on the Indian Government and food resources of Bengal and Burmah 
[sic] will be immense.  The famine in Northern China is far worse than in Ceylon.  
An appeal from the Netherlands Consul-General in Shanghai for subscriptions to 
the Eastern world gives a harrowing account of sufferings and deaths, and no 
Government aid is available for the poor wretches; each 4 dol. subscription is 
calculated to save a life.2 

 
 



 Garden, El Niño in Australia and New Zealand  2 
 

Introduction 
 

These are just two of many reports that can be found in Australian and New Zealand 
newspapers in 1877 that indicate an emerging awareness of the interconnectedness of climate, 
and of the shared weather-based hardship that was being suffered across large regions of the 
planet in 1877. They demonstrate an early consciousness of links that about a century later would 
be identified as manifestations of an El Niño event which in turn is one of the extremes of the El 
Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Such reports also underline the fact that the 1876-78 El Niño 
is recognised as one of the most severe in modern history. Mike Davis drew our attention to it in 
2001 in his moving exposé and polemic, Late Victorian Holocausts.3 He gave a graphic account 
of the tragic results, particularly in the northern hemisphere where there are estimates of human 
mortality of up to 10.3 million in India and 20 million in China from malnutrition and drought-
related diseases.4  

Australia and New Zealand also experienced climatic fluctuations as a result of the El 
Niño, though clearly nowhere near the extremes of monsoonal Asia. My study of three El Niño 
periods, 1864-68, 1876-78 and 1895-1903, and their impacts in Australia, New Zealand and the 
South Pacific, is presenting a more complex picture of ENSO impacts than has often been 
recognised. These can be summarised as: the influences of El Niño are highly variable; that El 
Niño events often held back or retarded colonial settlement, although generally only temporarily; 
and that their impact on climate was a major factor in the development of public policy relating 
to land settlement and water distribution. 

Some scholars will react to such assertions as representing a new form of ‘environmental 
determinism’, a term that is forever damaged by its association with race-based dogma and 
eugenics. What I argue has nothing to do with race, and is not deterministic in its full sense, but 
an assertion that the environment, specifically climate in this case, is a major factor in the 
economy, development, success and even survival of human societies. Climatic fluctuations may 
be even more important in colonial settler societies where learning about and adaptation to 
climate are critical to success.  

The ‘discovery’ and experience of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in recent 
decades, and realisation of their impact on the weather in many parts of the globe, has stimulated 
not only climatological research. Awareness has been raised that ENSO, more specifically El 
Niño events, have been influential in human history, and a great deal of research has been 
undertaken to discover the ways they have shaped the human experience. Consciousness of El 
Niño has come to act as a prism through which we can view the past. However, one problem 
with this prism (or indeed in focussing on any singular phenomenon in an historical study) is that 
distortion and over-emphasis are all too easily portrayed by the writer, or perceived by the 
reader. It is often difficult to identify with absolute certainty both El Niño-related weather 
phenomena and their repercussions. However, it is possible to observe trends, and to conclude on 
the basis of available evidence and probability, that El Niños have at times significantly shaped 
weather events in Australia and New Zealand. In Australia this produces a higher likelihood of 
droughts and, depending on location, either droughts or floods in New Zealand. The response to 
droughts in Australia has been to encourage water conservation, manipulation and redistribution, 
as can be epitomised by the construction of irrigation dams and artesian bores. In New Zealand, 
by contrast, the response to heavy precipitation and flooding that is often a result of El Niño 
events, has been to try to control an excess of water, as epitomised by the construction of levee 
banks, or stopbanks as they are known locally. 



 History of Meteorology 4 (2008)  3 
 

In this article I focus on some aspects of the 1876-78 El Niño in Australia and New 
Zealand. It has become very clear from my study that despite the newspaper reports cited above, 
in this El Niño as in others, not only were the weather effects far from uniform across the globe, 
or in the southern hemisphere, but even within Australia and New Zealand the weather in 1876-
78 was notably uneven. There are three principal points I will argue.  

The first is the variability of El Niños both spatially and chronologically. In India, China 
and New Zealand 1877 and 1878 were the most affected years. In Australia it was 1876 and/or 
1877 that showed significant rainfall changes in most regions, and only in a minority of places 
did 1878 show signs of a rainfall deficit.  

Second, that while there was drought in Australia it was not one of the most serious since 
European settlement, and had less impact than those that preceded and followed. It was erratic, 
profound in some places, but relatively short and sometimes mild in its impact. This raises the 
whole question of the definition of drought – and very roughly I include three criteria in my 
working definition. 

- an extended period of substantially below average rainfall. 
- by extended, I mean one of sufficient length to cause widespread natural 
repercussions such as very low flows in water systems and the decline and death 
of indigenous flora and fauna. This is an ecological drought. 
- by extended, I also mean sufficient to cause widespread economic and social 
harm to human populations. This is a human drought. 

 
(One of the issues here is that there are or were different levels of aridity that triggered ecological 
and human droughts. Australian ecosystems, for example, have evolved over millennia to survive 
aridity and El Niño droughts. Western agriculture and pastoralism have not, and in many ways 
were unsuited or inappropriate within such an environment. However, human intervention in the 
environment and damage to ecosystems reduced their tolerance for aridity, lowered their capacity 
to survive and brought the onset triggers of ecological and human droughts closer together.) 

The third point is that the principal effects of the El Niño in New Zealand in some regions 
were often the opposite of what has normally been described – not droughts but high 
precipitation and floods. 
 
El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) 
 

The basic outline of the complex relationships between Sea Surface Temperatures and the 
Southern Oscillation Index (the see-saw of barometric pressures measured between Darwin and 
Tahiti) which we know as ENSO was brought together in the 1960s by Jacob Bjerknes. 
However, it was the severe El Niños of 1982-83 and then the late 1990s that really attracted 
attention to the phenomena and promoted scientific research and public knowledge.5 These days 
there would be few people in Australia and New Zealand who would not recognise the name of 
El Niño, and perhaps even the opposite extreme, La Niña.  

It is widely understood that during an El Niño there is a greater likelihood of storms and 
rains in the eastern Pacific – along the coasts of central America and adjacent coastlines in South 
America and California. In the central and eastern tropical Pacific there is a greater likelihood of 
cyclones. By contrast, in the western equatorial Pacific and further west the monsoon rains are 
disrupted and severe droughts can occur in South-East Asia, China and India. In Australia there 
is a high likelihood of below average rainfall, and in New Zealand there is an unusual patchwork 



 Garden, El Niño in Australia and New Zealand  4 
 

effect. Even wider connections have been seen – Richard Grove has famously or infamously 
attributed the French Revolution at least partly to El Niño.6 

These repercussions are largely a response to a reversal of the Walker Circulation, the 
east-west circulation of air across the equatorial Pacific that normally produces prevailing 
easterly trade winds (See Figure 1). When, for unknown reasons, warm water pools in the eastern 
Pacific, often near Christmas, (hence the name El Niño or boy child), it reduces the ‘normal’ 
flow of air along the equator, and can even reverse the wind pattern. Higher barometric pressures 
to Australia’s north can disrupt the monsoon and push the Hadley Cell southward, which in turn 
displaces the rain-bearing systems that cross the southern half of the Australian continent. Rains 
fail and drought can result. 

 

 
 
Fig. 1. Walker Circulation – typical pattern and during an El Niño. Bureau of Meteorology, Australia. 

Source: http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/climate/levelthree/analclim/elnino.htm. 
 

Identification of when El Niños occurred in the 20th century is not very difficult as there 
is comprehensive data for the main indicators – Sea Surface Temperatures in the Pacific and the 
Southern Oscillation Index. The second half of the 19th century is a bit less certain, but collection 
of weather and associated data gathered significant pace and enables the compilation of SST and 
SOI data that permit a generally accepted chronology of when the most severe El Niños 
occurred. Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, however, climatic events and influences are less 
clear, but there has been major research using proxy data to establish the main outlines, 
especially in South America – research in areas such as dendrochronology, palynology and ice 
cores, as well as diverse written records of storms, floods and agricultural production. This has 



 History of Meteorology 4 (2008)  5 
 

given a general although not universally accepted chronology of El Niños going back over 
several centuries.7 

Figure 2 is an example of a compilation of Sea Surface Temperatures for the period of 
my study. It clearly shows the high spikes of SST that indicate an El Niño event, and very 
notably that the most pronounced was in 1877-78.8 However, the effect of that El Niño on 
regional weather was far from uniform and there is marked spatial and chronological variability. 
The effects in Australia tended to be brief and erratic, while in New Zealand they were rather 
more severe. 
 

 
 
Fig. 2. Sea Surface Temperatures, 1860-1905. Source: Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, 

http://climexp.knmi.nl/. 
 
Sources 
 

Weather recording had only just begun in the Australian colonies and New Zealand in the 
1870s, so even where it exists rainfall data cannot always be taken as highly accurate. There are 
questions about how representative some of the early stations were of the locality in which they 
were established, and recorded data depend on such matters as the reliability of the local person 
given charge of the weather station. Hard meteorological data, even when it does exist, can give 
only a limited insight into climate history. 

That is one reason why, as an historian, I have found it desirable and illuminating to use a 
wide diversity of sources when examining the effects of the El Niños. In particular, local 
newspapers provide a rich insight into not only what was being experienced at the time, but also 
what was understood and asserted within the colonial cultures about the climatic conditions and 
weather. Local papers often provide rich accounts that are an invaluable source for insights into 
the events and beliefs in a community. They also provide two of the historian’s greatest 
challenges – how to allow for the frailty of human memory and the distorting hyperbole of 
journalism. All too frequently in dramatic accounts one encounters such phrases as ‘the heaviest 
rain he has ever seen’, the ‘highest flood that our oldest inhabitant can recall’ or ‘it has never 
been so dry since settlement began’. Almost as frequently, a check of the official records, where 
they are available, will dispute such recollections and judgements. However, these are 



 Garden, El Niño in Australia and New Zealand  6 
 

methodological challenges to be taken into consideration in the use of such material rather than 
insurmountable obstacles. 

It should also be noted that the rainfall charts in this article show only annual data, and 
therefore only part of the picture. Monthly figures give a more complex view and indicate high 
variability; there are months with virtually no rain interspersed with months of well above 
average falls. Reference is made below to a number of such occasions.  
 
South-eastern Australia 
 

My project is using four case studies in south-eastern Australia: around Burra in South 
Australia; north-central Victoria and the Riverina region in southern New South Wales, centred 
on the Murray River town of Echuca; the Hunter Valley in north-central NSW and focussed on 
Maitland; and the Mary River/Burnett River (Wide Bay) region in Queensland centred on 
Maryborough and Bundaberg (Figure 3). These were chosen because they represent a range of 
natural and climatic environments and economic activities,9 and for three of them there are 
rainfall records back to the 1870s.  

 

 
Fig. 3. Map of eastern Australia showing case study sites: Burra in South Australia; north-central Victoria 

and the Riverina region in southern New South Wales; Hunter Valley (Newcastle and Branxton) 
in NSW; Mary River/Burnett River region (Maryborough and Bundaberg) in Queensland. 



 History of Meteorology 4 (2008)  7 
 

 
Annual rainfall data (Figures 4, 5 and 6 below) indicate that my South Australian and 

Victorian/southern NSW case study sites were reasonably hard hit by a drought in 1876 or 1877, 
but 1878 was a wet year. Further north my case study sites in NSW and Queensland [Figs 7, 8 & 
9] were a little below average across 1876-78, but there were wild monthly swings in the rainfall. 
Not shown by these figures (as there are no detailed or reliable rainfall records for this period in 
remote regions) is that further west in the arid pastoral zones of NSW and Queensland the 
drought lasted longer and the effects were more severe. Overall, the rainfall data for south-
eastern Australia show 1876-77 as a time of rainfall shortages interspersed with good downfalls. 
In many regions, good rains returned in 1878. As a result, in most zones drought periods were 
essentially localised and short (no more than six months), and this was the key factor. While 
short and intense periods of dry can cause hardship, the most serious Australian droughts (such 
as those in the 1860s, first half of the 1880s and 1895-1903) have all been the result of the 
cumulative effects of a number of years of below average rain. 
 

 
 

Fig. 4. Burra annual rainfall 1863-1886 and long-term average. Bureau of Meteorology, station 021011 
 

In and around Burra in South Australia, 1876 was the only below average year during the 
sequence. There were good autumn rains in 1876 but by September there was mounting concern 
as memories turned back to the devastating 1860s drought:  

The prospects of South Australia have, in the short space of five months, suffered 
one of the most sudden and terrible reverses known in the history of the colony. 
We say five months, for the rainy season commences generally before the close of 
April, and at that time in the present year we had no reason to apprehend a bad 
season… But the want of the annual rainfall soon changed the aspect of affairs. In 
the country to the east and north-east [of Burra], a drought began to be feared; and 
though there were two or three falls of rain which did good for a time, they were 



 Garden, El Niño in Australia and New Zealand  8 
 

not followed up by more, and a large portion of the north country is at the present 
time a desert.10 

 
Dust storms became more frequent. However, from early October there was rain in parts of the 
district which alleviated some of the worst fears. Wheat yields in the 1876-77 harvest, while 
poor, were not disastrous, and sufficient hay was harvested to avoid a hay famine. The wool clip 
was light and there were losses of sheep and livestock, including a high proportion of lambs, but 
the industry was not crippled.11 By the end of 1876, the worst of the El Niño drought in the Burra 
region was already over and the next two years would be quite good. There was minimal impact 
on the town and district, certainly much less than in the El Niños of the 1860s, and the people of 
Burra were therefore very receptive to the plight of the people of India: 

The Burra Amateur Christy Minstrels, assisted by lady amateurs will give an 
entertainment in the Institute Hall… in aid of the Indian Famine Relief Fund. The 
programme is a good one, and the fact, together with the goodness of the cause, 
should ensure a bumper house.12 

 
The Northern Mail even felt it necessary to reprimand those residents in the district who did not 
give to the Fund: ‘We trust that for the credit of the district, and the sake of common humanity, 
these persons will reconsider their decision and give of their abundance to the starving millions 
of India.’13 

The wider South Australian experience in this period has been told before, notably by 
Donald Meinig in the 1960s, although not in the light of its relationship to El Niño as such 
knowledge was not then available.14 Meinig showed that following the severe 1860s drought 
there was a major expansion of agricultural settlement, stimulated by several years of average to 
good rain in the first half of the 1870s. Areas beyond the previous margins of settlement were 
thrown open for farmers on credit terms, and a land scramble ensued. The area under wheat grew 
by about 100,000 hectares between 1872 and 1874, and with generally high yields. By the 
middle of the decade there was a shortage of suitable new agricultural land and the series of good 
seasons had provoked such optimism that there was a clamour to do away with the so-called 
Goyder Line. This was a line of demarcation drawn by Surveyor General George Goyder to 
show the worst drought affected areas in 1866. It had latterly come to be interpreted as an 
indicator of where there was sufficient rain for agriculture to be viable; outside Goyder’s Line, it 
was believed, only pastoralism could survive. 

Now, with the series of good seasons in the first half of the 1870s Goyder’s cautionary 
line was ridiculed and abundant rain in wheat-growing districts and beyond was seen as proof of 
a piece of popular mythology - that rain follows the plough. In 1874 the limit on settlement 
marked by the Goyder line was over-ruled by new legislation, and more good rains in 1875 
encouraged a wider spread of settlement, just as the El Niño was setting in. Given the reputation 
of this El Niño and its effects in India and China, disaster in South Australia might also be 
anticipated, but this did not happen because the drought in the colony was relatively short and 
mild. While the harvest of 1876-77 was about half of the previous year, there was good rainfall 
from early 1877 which encouraged further movement of frontier well beyond Goyder’s line over 
the next few years.15 South Australia escaped this El Niño relatively unscathed. 
 



 History of Meteorology 4 (2008)  9 
 

 
 
Fig. 5. Melbourne annual rainfall 1863-1886 and long-term average. Bureau of Meteorology, station 

86071 
 
 

 
 
Fig. 6. Deniliquin annual rainfall 1863-1886 and long-term average. Bureau of Meteorology, station 

074128 
 

In northern Victoria and southern New South Wales new areas were also opening for 
agricultural settlement in the 1870s and farmers there were also relatively unimpeded by the El 
Niño. There are no rainfall figures for Echuca, the main town in my case study, but Melbourne 
can serve as a reasonably indicative substitute of the general Victorian trends. These show 1876 



 Garden, El Niño in Australia and New Zealand  10 
 

and 1877 as marginally below average, and 1878 about average. These were not the conditions of 
a severe drought. Deniliquin in the Riverina region of NSW was more extreme, showing 1876-77 
as seriously dry, but 1878 as very wet. Even within the two dry years, however, there was 
considerable variability. Like Burra, there were good autumn rains in 1876, but thereafter winter 
was dry and the ‘d’ word began to be used in spring, especially to the west and north of the 
Murray River port of Echuca where the Riverine Herald expressed its concern in August: 

Fears are entertained in Riverina that there is to be another drought. Feed along 
the frontages is becoming scarce, and unless a plentiful supply of rain soon 
comes, stock will suffer great privations from the want of herbage, &c… The 
result of overstocking is already being felt; on some stations sheep are being 
travelled for grass, which is everywhere scarce from Moama to the Darling, 
owing to the continued dry weather, and the sharp biting frosts that have prevailed 
for the last two months throughout the Riverina district.16 

 
Within a week of this being published, however, good rain fell in much of Victoria and 

southern NSW and it was announced with relief that the ‘drought of 1876 is now a thing of the 
past’.17 This was over-optimistic and rainfall throughout the region was patchy for the rest of 
1876. The summer of 1876-77 was a testing one as there had been little rain in the headwaters of 
the Murray, and with the normal summer tapering of rain in the Darling and Murrumbidgee 
catchments, by January 1877 the Murray was particularly low: 

The Rivers. – As showing the shallowness of the Murray at Echuca at the present 
time we may mention that on Saturday last a number of boys and youths were to 
be seen walking from the bank opposite the wharf, almost into the centre of the 
stream.  The shell of the old “Lady Augusta” – the first boat that navigated the 
Murray – is now several feet above the level of the water, and in all probability 
two or three more weeks will see the close of the river season. Both on the 
Murrumbidgee and the Darling several of the steamers belonging to this port are 
stuck and have had to discharge or lighten cargo. Our correspondent at Hay 
telegraphed to us that the river there was scarcely four feet above summer level 
and we learn privately that it was then falling.18 

 
Despite the El Niño there were encouragingly good autumn and winter rains in 1877 and the 

Herald reported in May: 
The accounts from all parts of Victoria, as well as from the neighboring colonies, 
continue favourable. They agree, indeed, generally in reporting that a finer season 
has seldom if ever been known. In most parts of Victoria the sowing has been 
completed, and as may be expected, the appearance of the young crops is entirely 
satisfactory. During the last fortnight, in which rainy weather has prevailed, there 
has been no frost in most districts, and the genial and occasionally sunny weather 
has caused a great growth of grass. As all available means have been everywhere 
employed to increase the area of cultivation the ensuing crop in Australia bids fair 
to be larger than hitherto produced, but, of course, everything depends upon the 
season continuing propitious.19 

 
Conditions did not remain so promising, and overall 1877 was drier in many parts of Victoria 
and NSW than in 1876, but in agricultural regions the year was not a disaster. 1878 then brought 



 History of Meteorology 4 (2008)  11 
 

good rain across much of the two colonies, which enabled them to survive the El Niño relatively 
unscathed. 

The Hunter Valley in NSW and its hinterland showed the most extreme conditions of any 
of my case studies. Newcastle, on the coast, was reasonably below average in 1876 and 1878, 
with 1878 the worst year in the sequence, a chronology shared by few other places. Branxton, 
only 50 km further inland, was well below average in all three years, but most seriously in 1877 
(Figures 7 and 8).  This made conditions in the Hunter difficult, but because its rainfall is much 
higher than in the southern case studies it was not as damaging. Besides, the drought came in 
short bursts, often punctuated by substantial rainfall which meant that harvests of grain and vine 
were generally sound. A mixture of inconsistent weather, semi-damaged crops and alternating 
optimism and pessimism marked the period, as was captured in this comment from the Maitland 
Mercury upon the Branxton vineyards in March 1877: 

The Vintage.—The vignerons of this district are at present actively engaged in the 
vintage. The owners of the several small vineyards and of large ones in the 
infancy of their bearing, have completed the task of wine-making with very 
satisfactory results as regards the quality of the wine obtained it being 
characterised as excellent. The recent hot weather and the necessity of a 
seasonable rainfall have been detrimental for the production of any considerable 
yield per acre—a great proportion of the crop in the several instance assuming 
more the appearance of raisins than of the fully developed grapes.20 
 

 
 
Fig. 7. Newcastle annual rainfall 1863-1886 and long-term average. Bureau of Meteorology, station 

61055 
 
 
 



 Garden, El Niño in Australia and New Zealand  12 
 

 
 
Fig. 8. Branxton annual rainfall 1863-1886 and long-term average. Bureau of Meteorology, station 61014 
 

In April 1878 a correspondent to the Mercury described conditions that clearly did not 
indicate a damaging drought, even allowing for the hyperbole:  

You are rejoicing over the propitiousness of the season on the Hunter since the 
beginning of February: how much more reason we have for unbounded 
thankfulness, who have been best with regular supplies of rain just as it was 
required, ever since the month of August last. Never in the memory of the white 
man has such exuberance of vegetation been seen at this season of the year; the 
paddocks around here are fit to mow, grass is everywhere running to seed—there 
are not half enough of stock in the district to keep it down... People here are 
beginning to complain of too much rain; but it is not their health they are thinking 
about, it is the abominable roads in the district, that in wet weather it is a tell and 
torture to the spirit of man and beast to have to flounder through and over them.21 

 
Since conditions in the Hunter were not extreme, the Mercury tended to show at least as much 
interest in weather conditions in the pastoral hinterland, in New England and western NSW, 
where the worst drought effects of 1876-78 were felt. Indeed, much of the reputation for the 
severity of the 1876-78 El Niño in Australia was because of the hardship in the pastoral industry 
in western NSW. It was reported of this region in March 1877: 

The Drought. – The Hay Standard reports that at the rate at which the flocks are 
being reduced by deportation and starvation, there will not be many sheep left in 
the district at the end of the season. On one fine station, having an extensive 
frontage to the river, only a few head besides the stud stock remain, most of the 
sheep having been purchased by owners of more favored country. Travelling 
sheep fare badly; of a mob of 25,000 store sheep that crossed at Hay Bridge, the 
other day, from Burrabogie, for the Darling, hundreds have been left dead or 



 History of Meteorology 4 (2008)  13 
 

dying in the river bends, and it is believed that a large number must perish before 
their destination is reached.22 

 
The reasons for the severity of the drought in pastoral zones were not confined to a 

simple deficiency of rain. There were three compounding factors. The first was the reduced 
resilience of vegetation and soils because of the accumulated effects of over-grazing by millions 
of alien animals which the land and could not sustainably support. Indigenous flora was 
evolutionarily adapted for periods of reduced rainfall, but not for the repercussions of intensive 
grazing by cloven-hooved animals that ate them to the ground. The reduced vegetation cover also 
exposed soils to heat, wind and the likelihood of erosion. Second, natural water sources were 
often muddied and exhausted, but even where they remained usable the vegetation around them 
(and the bores that had been drilled) was soon eaten out. More sheep died of starvation than thirst 
as all feed within walking distance of water points was consumed. Third, these effects were 
compounded by the spread of introduced rabbits which contributed significantly to 
environmental fragility. Together, these three phenomena brought greater soil erosion, 
evaporation and damage to water systems which precipitated quickly both an ecological and 
human drought – bare dry land, dead animals and economic collapse. 

Nevertheless, even in arid pastoral zones there were some periods of useful rain during 
the El Niño. Across NSW, therefore, variability and diversity mark the experience in 1876-78. 
The complexity of the weather was captured by a newspaper report in December 1877: 

A telegram from Gunnedah, N.S.W., states that the drought continues unbroken. 
There is no grass in any part of the district, and stock are daily dying in large 
numbers from starvation. The prospect offered by a few months more of dry 
weather is exceedingly gloomy, and unless the weather changes there will be 
famine in the district and all the settlers will be ruined.  A heavy thunderstorm 
occurred at Newcastle and Singleton on Monday, with terrific lightning and 
considerable rain.  At the latter town the lightning split a tree near the public 
school. It is raining heavily in the Goulburn district.  Distressing news comes 
from the New South Wales provinces. Last week hailstorms did much damage to 
the crops in the Carcoar district. A great quantity of wheat is being mown for hay. 
The Coonabarraban country is reduced to an arid desert for want of rain, and from 
nearly all the pastoral districts news comes that the sheep are travelling in every 
direction in quest of feed and water.23 

 
In the Wide Bay region in Queensland, as measured by rainfall at Maryborough, all three 

El Niño years were slightly below average, but 1878 was the driest (Figure 9). The accumulative 
effect was potentially harmful but not catastrophic, and there was extraordinary variability within 
those years, with rainfall jumping all over the place. There were dry spells in each of the three 
years, but the driest were from February to June 1877 and June to November 1878, which were 
in different halves of the year and were sandwiched by well above-average falls. Therefore, the 
impact on crops came down largely to where the rain fell, or did not fall, in the growing cycle. 
Sugar did quite well and it was maize farmers who suffered more: 

With regard to sugar cultivation in Queensland we find the following interesting 
particulars by a correspondent of the Wide Bay News:- ‘The sugar season is all but 
over, and without doubt it has been the best we have had since sugar became the 
staple of the Mary. Everywhere the density of the juice has been extraordinarily 



 Garden, El Niño in Australia and New Zealand  14 
 

high, and the yield all round wonderfully good. The season, though in the coast 
districts unfavourable to the maize-grower and the grazier, on account of the long 
drought, was exceptionally favourable for sugarcane. It is true that the dry 
weather somewhat retarded the young crop, but not to any serious extent, and the 
plants and ratoons of the season seem to have recovered already.24 
 

 
 

Fig. 9. Maryborough annual rainfall 1863-1886 and long-term average. Bureau of Meteorology, station 
40126 

 
Once more, it was further west in Queensland’s pastoral zones that the absence of rain 

was most notable and reports tended to concentrate on those troubles, while closer to 
Maryborough the patchiness brought hard times interspersed with good times. From June 1878 
rain was below average, apart from a reasonable fall in September, on which the Maryborough 
Chronicle commented: 

The influence of the fine rains of a fortnight ago upon garden and field has been 
magical. Arid, desolate tracts are covered with a rich green carpet, the flower 
garden has suddenly burst into a huge bouquet of bloom and beauty, and, what to 
many is of more importance, all kinds of green stuff for the table has suddenly 
appeared in succulent profusion. The sky and the earth have wedded, and 
bounteous Nature has yielded her increase.25 

 
Even allowing for the local bravado and hyperbole, this is not a depiction of a period of harmful 
drought.  

In summary, across south-eastern Australia virtually all places received less than their 
annual average rainfall in at least one year in the period 1876-78. Apart from some arid western 
zones, there were few locations that did not receive at least one good period of rain in every year. 
It was a time of rainfall shortages interspersed with good downfalls. Drought periods were 
essentially localised and short. 



 History of Meteorology 4 (2008)  15 
 

Prior to looking at these regions in detail I was under the impression that the 1876-78 El 
Niño had been a major factor in two fundamental movements in South Australia and Victoria – 
the failure of frontier agricultural settlement in the former, and the drive for irrigation in the latter 
that resulted in the first major irrigation legislation. However, a closer study shows that it was 
dry years in the first half of the 1880s that had more impact in both regions. An examination of 
the most reliable international data shows a reasonable consensus that there were El Niños in 
1880-81 and 1884-85.26 Australian rainfall data (Figs 4 – 8 above) indicates that while the 
weather was patchy, large areas of South Australia and Victoria and southern NSW experienced 
below average rainfall for up to five years, with the likelihood of more severe dips in 1882 and 
1884. My conclusion is that this extensive period of below average rainfall did a great deal more 
harm to pastoralism and to the infant agricultural industries in the three colonies than the El Niño 
of 1876-78.  

The cumulative effects of these dry years and ongoing environmental damage 
precipitated widespread failures among the new farmers in the colonies. Donald Meinig has 
described the agricultural retreat from the mid-north of South Australia where many farmers 
survived the first few years, but the deep drought of 1884 resulted in the abandonment of most 
farms and agriculture outside the Goyder line.27 It became a country of abandoned farmhouses 
and ghost towns.  

In Victoria there was not such a high level of agricultural attrition or human tragedy, but 
the climatic challenges resulted in the promotion of a brave new solution – irrigation. The 
drought of 1876-77 stimulated discussion of many schemes, and the advocates promoted a view, 
still not uncommon in Australia, that there was plenty of water – it was just in the wrong place at 
the wrong time. Human ingenuity and engineering, through irrigation, could fix that fault and 
make the deserts bloom. However, the 1870s drought was not sufficiently profound to trigger 
government action. By contrast, the dry years of the first half of the 1880s resulted in a series of 
government initiatives that established Victoria as the main irrigation colony. Most notably, one 
of those who became interested was a young politician and journalist, Alfred Deakin. In 1884, as 
the El Niño bit, he was appointed to Chair a Royal Commission on Water Supply. Over the next 
couple of years his investigations took him to California and India to examine irrigation schemes. 
It is worth noting that NSW also held a Commission on Water Conservation at the same time.28 
The Victorian Commission’s reports and subsequent legislation, laid down many of the 
principles for water and irrigation in Victoria, one of which was that government should 
undertake responsibility for major capital works such as dams and the main distribution channels 
The Goulburn river weir, built 1887-1891, was the first ‘national’ work under the scheme. The 
response to El Niño droughts in Australia then and in the twentieth century, it might be said, was 
encapsulated in the construction of irrigation dams. 
 



 Garden, El Niño in Australia and New Zealand  16 
 

New Zealand 
 

 
 

Fig. 10. Map of New Zealand showing main sites affected by El Niño, and the prevailing winds during an 
El Niño event. 

 
In New Zealand, as elsewhere across the British Empire, there was some knowledge and 

concern about the dreadful famine in India in 1877, and money was collected for famine relief. 
The New Zealand Mail noted, ‘famine caused by droughts is slaying its thousands and tens of 
thousands of the wretched inhabitants’,29 and the New Zealand Herald expressed its horror that 
‘the bulk of the people (15,000,000) are now emaciated with their ribs sticking out in painful 
prominence, and their skins covered in [sores]’.30 A public meeting was held in Wellington in 
October, presided over by the Governor, to commence collecting relief funds, and smaller 
communities had similar functions.31  

The effects of the El Niño of 1876-78 in New Zealand present a very different story, both 
from those of India and the Australian colonies. There was not the immense misery of India or 
China, but the weather was extreme, especially in 1878. Unlike Australia, parts of New Zealand 
were abnormally wet and cold. 

It has been recognized for at least the last two decades that during an El Niño some 
regions of New Zealand experience below average rainfall. This is because during an El Niño the 
normal westerly wind systems move further northward and cold fronts from the south push 



 History of Meteorology 4 (2008)  17 
 

further north and east bringing stronger west and south-west winds that are colder than normal 
and penetrate further across the islands. Areas in the east of the two main islands, the North 
Island and the South Island, especially those in the shelter of mountain ranges, are thrown into 
rain shadow as the winds become warmer and drier after crossing the mountains. The regions 
most affected are around the Hawkes Bay (Napier and Hastings) and Poverty Bay (Gisborne) 
regions of the North Island, and on the Canterbury Plains (adjacent to Christchurch) and parts of 
Central Otago (inland from Dunedin) on the South Island. The data for Napier (Figure 11) show 
that 1876-78 was a dry period although 1878 was the only significantly below-average year. 
What is not shown is that the total for 1877 was boosted by a large downpour in February and 
therefore gives a somewhat distorted picture, as I discuss below. Christchurch (Figure 12) was 
below average in all three years, and this indicates that the Canterbury Plains were seriously 
affected. By contrast, Dunedin’s rainfall (Figure 13) seems to indicate that it was little affected, 
which is also a slight distortion, as I explain below. 

 

 
 
Fig. 11. Napier annual rainfall 1876-78 and long-term average. National Institute of Water & 

Atmospheric Research, New Zealand, station 2982 
 

 



 Garden, El Niño in Australia and New Zealand  18 
 

 
 

Fig. 12. Christchurch annual rainfall 1876-78 and long-term average. National Institute of Water & 
Atmospheric Research, New Zealand, station 4858 

 
 

 
 

 
Fig. 13. Dunedin annual rainfall 1876-78 and long-term average. National Institute of Water & 

Atmospheric Research, New Zealand, station 5378 
 



 History of Meteorology 4 (2008)  19 
 

So, yes, there are rainfall deficiencies in New Zealand which are often called droughts, 
although in Australian terms they are short, mild and localised. Except for 1897-98, and to a 
lesser extent 1878, I have found no evidence of nineteenth century droughts that have been long 
or profound. 

In recent years as study of ENSO has increased, there has been wider acceptance that the 
effects of an El Niño are not limited to below-average rain in eastern zones. 32  There is actually a 
more dramatic effect. The stronger, colder and moister-than-normal onshore winds that occur 
during an El Niño, particularly in the west and south-west of the South Island, produce a 
disproportionate number of New Zealand’s most extreme wet and cold weather events - storms, 
snow and rainfall - and resulting floods. Snowfalls provide perhaps the best correlation. 
Allowing for problems of definition and identification, the main snowfalls on the South Island up 
to the 1970s occurred in 1867, 1878, 1888, 1895, 1903, 1931, 1939, 1945, 1967 and 1972. Every 
one of these is clearly within or is closely associated with an El Niño period. Such a correlation 
is more than coincidental! 

 

 
 
Fig. 14. Hokitika South annual rainfall 1876-78 and long-term average. National Institute of Water & 

Atmospheric Research, New Zealand, station 3907. 
 

Many parts of New Zealand normally have substantial rainfall, and floods are not 
infrequent. However, it can also be demonstrated that a majority of the most severe floods, 
particularly in those regions most exposed to El Niño effects, have been concentrated in El Niño 
periods. These vulnerable zones lie along the west and south coasts of the South Island, in 
Southland, Westland and Fiordland. Unfortunately, there is little rainfall data for the 1870s, but 
longer-term figures show a generally consistent record of heavy rain, snowfall and floods on 
these coasts and their hinterlands during El Niño events. Such above average rainfall and snow 
can result immediately in floods, or can lay down such a quantity of snow that flooding can 
occur when the snow thaws. An examination of long-term rainfall along these coasts, and of 



 Garden, El Niño in Australia and New Zealand  20 
 

flood records, indicate a significant (but by no means entire) concentration of wettest periods and 
floods in El Niño years. For the 1870s the only available rainfall data is for the Hokitika South 
station (Fig. 14), and these clearly show well-above-average falls for this generally wet region. 
The situation had been the same along this coastline during the 1860s El Niño when the floods 
had been so serious that in 1866-68 the government undertook large infrastructure works 
(stopbanks, groins, etc) to try to reduce flood damage in Hokitika.33  

One of the paradoxes raised by El Niños in New Zealand is that the Hawkes Bay district 
around Napier, which is generally defined as one of the regions most likely to suffer drought 
during an El Niño, is also likely to experience floods during an El Niño. It is remarkable that the 
area experienced four severe floods in the nineteenth century, each in an El Niño period, and 
each worse than its predecessor - May-June 1867, February 1868, February 1877 and April 1897. 
This is because during an El Niño the cold and wet winds at times swirl further around from the 
south and south-east and deluge the east coast of both islands. For example, the rainfall in Napier 
in 1877 was below average for much of the year, but a south-easterly downpour in February 
produced 355.1 mm of the year’s annual total of 851.2 mm.34 As a result of such marked 
fluctuations, which tend to be more extreme during an El Niño, rainfall on east coast sites on 
both islands can be a hotchpotch of dry periods and intense downfalls. This phenomenon 
explains the above average rainfall in Dunedin during 1876-78, most notably because of amazing 
314.4 mm in June 1878.35  

A major focus of my study has been on the Clutha River catchment (Figure 15). The 
Clutha River is the main ocean outlet for a large and connected system of lakes and rivers that 
drain an area of 20,582 square kilometres on the south-eastern side of the Southern Alps. It 
stretches for more than 200 kilometres from areas of glacial ice and permanent snowfields in the 
Alps quite close the western coast, to its ocean outlets on the south-eastern corner of the South 
Island. About twelve kilometres from its outfall, just downstream of the town of Balclutha, the 
river divides into two arms. Until 1878 they flowed into a narrow dunal lake which had an exit to 
the ocean at its south-western end. Between the two branches of the lower Clutha lies a low and 
flat flood plain, effectively an island, which explains its name, Inch Clutha – Inch is a Scottish 
term for an island. This topographical configuration of the Clutha system made it vulnerable to 
flooding. The very large alpine catchment flowed into a flat plain with a narrow ocean outlet, and 
the flatness of the Inch and with a low central wetland was a dangerous combination.36  

 



 History of Meteorology 4 (2008)  21 
 

 
 

Fig. 15. Map of the Clutha River system, South Island, New Zealand. 
 
In the early years before there were good roads, the Clutha River served as a significant 

pathway for small vessels that plied the coast and used the stream to reach into the developing 
hinterland. A small port and township, Port Molyneux, were established beside the ocean outlet, 
and a townsite was planned that included an Octagon or city ‘square’ similar to one in Dunedin. 

There is evidence of regular flooding of the Clutha system before European arrival, but 
human intervention in the landscape after settlement increased both the likelihood and extent of 
floods. Sheep grazing and gold mining were two major industries, with two principal 
environmental effects. First, grazed and cleared land had less vegetation to retain and filter 
rainfall, and this allowed much more rapid runoff. Secondly, soil no longer protected by 
indigenous vegetation or held together by its roots, was much more exposed to water and wind 
erosion. The soils in many areas of New Zealand are friable and are easily eroded, notably on the 



 Garden, El Niño in Australia and New Zealand  22 
 

many steep hillsides. New Zealand had always had landslips, but landslips now became a New 
Zealand phenomenon, and enormous quantities of soil, silt and other detritus found their way 
into the water systems, silting their channels and blocking their outflows.  

The Clutha experienced big floods in January 1866, during the El Niño, when a weather 
system dropped a substantial volume of rain on accumulated snow in the Alps. The snow melted 
rapidly and a flood rushed down the mountains. Many miners were trapped and drowned, and 
there was a great deal of damage to mines and equipment. The water carried a load heavy of silt, 
trees and human debris. Balclutha was deluged with the ‘most destructive flood within the 
remembrance of the earliest settlers’ and Inch Clutha was inundated.37 There were great losses of 
gardens, crops and stock. Despite the setback, the mining industry, farms and the townships 
slowly recovered and development continued. However, in May 1866 Port Molyneux lost its 
status as a port of entry into the colony, and shipping trade on the river declined. 

There was an even greater flood in 1878. Queenstown, which is adjacent to one of the 
lakes which form part of the catchment of the Clutha system, is one of the few places in the south 
for which there is 1870s rainfall data, and it experienced nearly double its annual average rain in 
1878 – 1525 mm compared with 832 mm average.38 There were unusually heavy falls of snow 
from May to August in the high country where mining was slowed to a standstill. On one 
pastoral property 60,000 head of stock were said to have died, and in lower regions rain began to 
swamp the river land. There were some colonists who had sufficient experience with local 
weather and conditions to realise that there were even further dangers in the build-up of so much 
snow. If rain and rising temperatures brought a rapid thaw and the already overburdened water 
systems were deluged, there was grave danger of severe flooding like that of 1866. One warning 
published in the Clutha Leader expressed prescient alarm about the vulnerability of the Clutha 
region: 

I beg through the columns of your paper to call the attention of the inhabitants of 
Balclutha and the low-lying parts of the vast district that drains itself into the 
Molyneux [an early name for the Clutha], particularly from Te Houka down to 
the sea, to the following facts. All over this vast district snow has fallen in such 
quantities as has never before been seen since this country was inhabited by 
Europeans, ergo should a thaw set in simultaneously a flood is sure to take place 
that may in all probability submerge Balclutha and the Island, and sweep the 
banks of the river from above Te Houka of every living thing, - knowing every 
inch I may say of the district from having traveled much over it, and having 
often remarked from the formation of the country that should a general rain take 
place some great disaster was sure to happen if the inhabitants of the portion of 
the district I mention were not warned in time.39 

 
The worst predictions came true when late in September a warm north-westerly airflow 

across the South Island and its snowfields brought several days of warm rains that precipitated a 
rapid thaw that flooded the Clutha system. In the upper catchment, around the lakes, there was 
such an outflow carrying a heavy burden of silt, timber and other debris related to land clearing 
and gold mining, that the system was unable to carry the waters away through the narrow gorges. 
The rivers and lakes backed up and the towns were flooded, including Queenstown (Figure 16). 
 



 History of Meteorology 4 (2008)  23 
 

 
 
Fig. 16. Queenstown in flood, October 1878. The Clutha River and its tributaries were unable to carry 

away flood waters quickly enough and the water level rose in Lake Wakatipu and flowed through 
the town. Source: Alexander Turnbull Library. 

 
Further down the Clutha system towns and settlements were also flooded, and numerous 

bridges and river crossings were damaged or destroyed. At Balclutha, much of the town went 
under water and the main road bridge was swept away. Inch Clutha became a sheet of water, 
made worse by the narrow ocean outlet at Port Molyneux that silted up and caused a backflow. 
However, on about 5 October the water broke through the sand spit to create a new channel into 
the ocean a little further to the east of Port Molyneux. Like pulling a plug, it allowed a more 
rapid draining. 

There are many stories of loss, bravery and rescue. The most dramatic rescue story, 
perhaps somewhat exaggerated, was of a carpenter and his ‘housekeeper’ whose house was 
swept off its foundations and was carried downstream across the Inch towards the ocean. At the 
lower end of the Inch their plight was spotted and a boat sent after them, saving the lucky couple 
soon before the house was swept out to sea. The old school-house on the Inch was also washed 
away and sailed ‘across the sandspit direct for the coast of South America’. 40  



 Garden, El Niño in Australia and New Zealand  24 
 

The estimated peak discharge of the 1878 flood at Balclutha, on 30 September, was the 
largest in its recorded history.41 Any flood will carry a great deal of debris, but the descriptions 
of the 1878 flood are notable for their references to the yellow waters and the burden they 
carried, substantially as a consequence of human activity in the watershed. The floods did great 
damage, setting back farms, destroying stock, curtailing mining and demolishing bridges, homes, 
businesses and other infrastructure. A charitable relief fund was established.  

Among most lasting and dramatic repercussion of the 1878 flood was the death of a town 
– or maybe it should be said that Port Molyneux was put out of its misery. A visitor to the area in 
the 21st century comes across a sign to Point Molyneux that confidently directs one down a road 
towards the sea, a few hundred metres away. However, just twenty metres along the road it is 
closed by a gate into what is now a private farm. The sign, in reality, points to a past aspiration 
rather than to any recent reality. The new river outlet that broke through the spit in 1878 
bypassed the port and left it with a sandbar blocking the entrance to its silted former harbour. 
The town slowly died, the land was taken over for farms, and today the visitor needs a good 
imagination and a good pair of boots to appreciate the lost vision. 

When the 1878 floods overwhelmed the Inch, there was work underway to build 
protective stopbanks or levees on the lower reaches of the Clutha. These were small and 
incomplete and had no chance of stemming the flow – they were simply swept away. In due 
course, however, a major infrastructure programme was implemented, so that now along the 
lower Clutha it is rather like a much smaller version of the lower Mississippi –snaking its way 
between bordering levees. 
 
Conclusion 
 

The El Niño of 1876-78 was markedly uneven in its effects across the globe. In Australia 
it was relatively short, erratic and mild. In New Zealand it was more severe and produced a 
particularly severe flood in the Clutha system. 

If you spend much time in Australia and New Zealand the contrast between the two 
climates and environments is very apparent. Even without El Niño, Australia is a generally dry 
continent, and New Zealand an often wet archipelago. What my study has confirmed is that El 
Niños, such as that in 1876-78, aggravate these extremes. The Australian response has been to 
establish infrastructure to overcome drought through water capture, conservation and 
redistribution. The New Zealand response has more likely been directed towards channelling and 
expelling excess water, to achieve flood control through stopbanking, river diversion and 
overflow channelling. 

 
 
For additional details see Don Garden, Heat, Dust and Deluge: El Niños that shaped our 

colonial past, Australian Scholarly Publishing, forthcoming 2009. 
 



 History of Meteorology 4 (2008)  25 
 

Notes 
 

1 New Zealand Herald, 6 Dec 1877 
2 Riverine Herald, 1 May 1877 
3 Davis, Mike, Late Victorian Holocaust: El Niño famines and the making of the third 

world, London, Verso, 2001 
4 Davis, pp. 7 & 113 
5 For discussions of the scientific basis of ENSO and its discovery see: Davis; Allan, Rob, 

Janette Lindesay, David Parker, The El Niño Southern Oscillation & Climatic Variability, 
Collingwood, CSIRO Publishing, 1996; Caviedes, Cesar N., El Niño in History: storming 
through the ages, Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 2001; Couper-Johnston, Ross, El 
Niño: the weather phenomenon that changed the world, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 2000; 
Nash, J. Madeleine, El Niño: unlocking the secrets of the master weather-maker, New York, 
Warner Books, 2002; Philander, S. George, El Niño, La Niña, and the Southern Oscillation, San 
Diego, Academic Press, 1990;  

6 Grove, Richard, ‘Revolutionary Weather’: the climate and economic crisis of 1788-1795 
and the discovery of El Niño’, in Tim Sherratt, Tom Griffiths & Libby Robin, A Change in the 
Weather: climate and culture in Australia, Canberra, National Museum of Australia Press, 2005 

7 For the dating of El Niños see: Quinn, W.H, V.T. Neal & S.E. Antunez de Mayolo, ‘El 
Niño occurrences over the past four and a half centuries’, Journal of Geophysical Research, 92, 
1987; Quinn, W.H. & V.T. Neal, ‘The Historical record of El Niño Events’ in Raymond S. 
Bradley and Philip D. Jones (eds), Climate Since A.D. 1500, New York, Routledge, 1995; Quinn, 
W.H., ‘A study of Southern Oscillation-related climatic activity for AD 622-1989 incorporating 
Nile River flood data’, in Henry F. Diaz & Vera Margraf (eds), El Niño: historical and 
paleoclimatic aspects of the Southern Oscillation, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1992; 
Ortlieb, Luc, ‘The Documentary Historical Record of El Niño Events in Peru: An Update of the 
Quinn Record (Sixteenth Through Nineteenth Centuries), In. Henry F. Díaz and Vera Markgraf 
(eds), El Niño and the Southern Oscillation: Multiscale Variability and Global and Regional 
Impacts, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2000. 

8 Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, http://climexp.knmi.nl/ 
9 Burra – semi-arid, inland, wheat, sheep and copper mining; Echuca – semi-arid, riverine, 

inland, wheat, sheep, river port and transport; Hunter Valley – more abundant rainfall, riverine, 
semi-coastal, mixed agriculture including vineyards, pastoral, coal mining; Wide Bay – sub-
tropical, semi-coastal, mixed agriculture especially sugar plantations. 

10 Northern Mail, 15 Sept 1876 
11 Northern Mail.6 Oct 1876, 5 Jan 1877 
12 Northern Mail 12 Oct 1877 
13 Northern Mail 12 Oct 1877 
14 Meinig, D.W., On the Margins of the Good Earth: the South Australian Wheat Frontier, 

1869-1884, Rand McNally, 1962 
15 Meinig; Sheldrick, Janis, ‘Goyder’s Line: the unreliable history of the line of reliable 

rainfall’, in Tim Sherratt, Tom Griffiths & Libby Robin, A Change in the Weather: climate and 
culture in Australia, Canberra, National Museum of Australia Press, 2005 

16 Riverine Herald, 5 Aug 1876 
17 Riverine Herald, 26 Aug 1876; also 5, 10 & 15, 29 Aug 1876 
18 Riverine Herald, 1 Jan 1877 



 Garden, El Niño in Australia and New Zealand  26 
 

 
19 Riverine Herald, 29 May 1877 
20 Maitland Mercury, 8 March 1877 
21 Maitland Mercury, 20 April 1878 
22 Riverine Herald, 6 March 1877 
23 Riverine Herald, 6 Dec 1877 
24 Riverine Herald, 27 Feb 1877 
25 Maryborough Chronicle, 5 Oct 1878 
26 Quinn & Neal; Ortlieb; Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute), 

http://climexp.knmi.nl/ 
27 Meinig, D.W., On the Margins of the Good Earth: the South Australian Wheat Frontier, 

1869-1884, Rand McNally, 1962 
28 Powell, J.M., Watering the Garden State: water, land and community in Victoria 1834-

1988, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1989; Blackburn, Gerard, Pioneering Irrigation in Australia to 
1920, Melbourne, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 1999 

29 New Zealand Mail, 20 Oct 1877 
30 New Zealand Herald, 13 Oct 1877 
31 New Zealand Mail, 20 Oct 1877 
32 For a discussion of the effects of El Niño on New Zealand, see: Brenstrum, Erick, The 

New Zealand Weather Book, Nelson, Craig Potton Publishing, 2003; Sturman, Andrew & Nigel 
Tapper, The Weather and Climate of Australia and New Zealand, second edition, Melbourne, 
Oxford University Press, 2006;  Mosley, M. Paul and Charles P. Pearson (eds), Floods and 
Droughts: the New Zealand experience, Wellington, New Zealand Hydrological Society, 1997; 
Mullan, Brett, 'Effects of ENSO on New Zealand and the South Pacific', in Braddock, Deborah 
(ed), Prospects and Needs for Climate Forecasting, Proceedings of a workshop sponsored by the 
New Zealand Climate Committee, Wellington, Royal Society of New Zealand, Miscellaneous 
Series, 34, 1996; Ward, G.F.A., 'The Southern Oscillation and its Effects on New Zealand 
Weather', New Zealand Agricultural Science, vol 19, no 1, February 1985; Hicks, Geoff & 
Hamish Campbell, Awesome Forces: the natural hazards that threaten New Zealand, 
Wellington, Te Papa Press, 1998 

33 Rochfort, James, ‘On Changes in the Hokitika River’, Transactions and Proceedings of 
the New Zealand Institute, vol iii, 1870 

34 National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, New Zealand, station 2982 
35 National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, New Zealand, station 5378 
36 McLay, Evelyn M., Stepping Out: a history of Clutha County 1876-1976, Balclutha, 

Clutha County Council, 1977; Rutherford, Alma, Inch: The Reproduction and Update of the 
Story of the Stirling and Inch Clutha, Balclutha, Alma Rutherford and Inch Clutha Committee, 
1998; Roxburgh, Irvine, Wanaka and Surrounding Districts, Christchurch, Upper Clutha 
Community Committee, 1990;  ‘Report of Rivers Commission on Clutha River’, 1920, NZ 
Parliamentary Papers, 1920 

37 Otago Daily Times, 16 Jan 1866; see also Bruce Herald, Jan 1866 
38 National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, New Zealand, station 5446 
39 Clutha Leader, 16 August 1878 
40 This account based on Clutha Leader, Sept-Oct 1878 
41 ‘Report of Rivers Commission on Clutha River’, 1920, New Zealand, Parliamentary 

Papers, 1920 


