den | Wet and Dry

Most of the tropics around the world have two seasons: Monsoon, and Dry Season. In the tropical north of Australia - the north half of the Northern Territory and Far North Queensland - they call the seasons The Wet and The Dry. The Wet runs from late Spring to early Autumn, while The Dry runs from late Autumn to early Spring. Today I found out that it's not as simple as it sounds.

We're doing a job in Darwin which had been delayed due to The Wet, so today I rang the client company to start gearing up the job because we're coming to the end of The Wet and things should start to dry out.

"Nah mate," said the CEO. "Don't bother yet. The Wet ran longer this year because it's a dry."

"Uh. A what?"

"A dry Wet. It'll run into The Dry this year."

"Sorry. What?"

He sighed, obviously used to talking to ignorant Southerners. "You know The Wet and The Dry?"

"Yes."

"Well some years The Wet can be really wet, so that's a wet Wet. Some years it can be dry, so that's a dry Wet, and they run longer than usual. The same with The Dry. Some years you can get a dry Dry and other years you get a wet Dry, which can also run longer. The dry Wet is followed by a dry Dry so we'll do the building then." *

I considered this logic for a moment. "And a wet Wet is followed by a wet Dry?"

"Yep, but not a wet Wet followed by a dry Dry."

"So... then we start building in May?"

"Yep. When The Wet has dried."

Obviously on Planet North Australia this is considered normal. The rest of the country call it Troppo.

*verbatum **
**Seriously. He actually said this.