During the wet season frequent and heavy Australia rains fall, and thunderstorms, with sharp showers, occur in the summer, especially on the north-west coast, which is sometimes visited by hurricanes of great violence.
These rivers, in the wet season and in places, have plenty of water, generally dissipated in vleis, pans and vloers (marshy and lake land).
The rainfall in the wet season is heavy, but not excessive, and during the dry season the ground is refreshed with occasional showers and heavy dews.
The elevated plateaus between these ranges are semiarid and inhospitable, and are covered with extensive saline basins, which become lagoons in the wet season and morasses or dry saltpans in the dry season.
This was chiefly attributable to the ravages of the liver fluke which began in the disastrously wet season of 1879.
