The drought is over. The rains have come.

Winter is the dry season in Paraguay. A lack of rain at that time of year is quite normal.

However this year the dry season was far drier and lasted far longer.

Winter in Paraguay runs from June until mid August. Although on the whole the temperatures are far from freezing cold spells do occur. When they do it is a dry cold as the air that brings the chill has lost all its moisture long before it reaches Paraguay.

Due to that and the fact that throughout much of the year the rain that does fall is from thunder storms. Hot air saturating the sky with moisture until it can take no more. Long dry spells during the winter are common.

These tend to last for a couple of weeks although they may continue for a month. Then there will be a downpour returning some vital water to the ground.

This sequence of dry spells and storms last until the arrival of spring. During September there are often several weeks of very unsettled weather bringing very heavy rain until everything settles down again.

Thereafter and for the rest of the year rain about once a week is to be expected. The September rain also coincide with the spring planting season and so are important to farmers to ensure a healthy crop the following year.

That is how winter should be. Dry with occasional rain followed by the spring storms.

This year however things were different.

Winter did begin as always in June. The days little cooler than those of autumn but a noticeable chill in the air at night.

As happens every year the change in seasons bought a halt to the regular downpours.

This year though rather than staying dry for a few weeks there was almost no rain for the next four months. This sucked all the moisture out of the ground. Drying off all the grasses and causing the water table to drop to unheard of levels.

The dry grasses became as the months passed a greater and greater fire hazard. Once a grass fire starts on dry ground there is almost no stopping it until it runs out of fuel.

This dryness became a drought and driven on by high winds fires burnt across Paraguay. So bad and so numerous were they that laws were passed prohibiting the lighting of fires, even small ones on private property. Offenders were dealt heavy fines.

It became one of the worst years on record for fires. No part of Paraguay was exempt. Even those parts that were normally covered by swamps burnt.

The dryness of the ground was not the only problem. There was also a lack of water below it.

Across the country the levels of the great rivers fell to previously unheard of levels. There was even a fear that the Paraguay River, Paraguays connection with the outside world may drop to a level where it would become unnavigable.

The bulk of Paraguays trade comes and goes by river. So the closure of the rivers to shipping would have been very harmful to the economy.

The dropping water levels were also felt in almost every house across the land. Much of the mains water in Paraguay is drawn up from deep underground. As the water table fell it had to be drawn from deeper and deeper.

This placed strains on the motors working the wells beyond what they were built for. As such all across Paraguay households lost their water supply for extended periods of times. Motors either blew under the stress or were turned off to protect then and conserve water supplies.

The drought was always going to end and everyone knew there would one day be rain once more. That did not though happen as expected in September.

There was some rain in September. Not though great storms to soak the land and refill the rivers. Just small downpours to slight to make any real changes. And so the waters continued to fall and the fires became more widespread.

The weather continued in much the same fashion all through October and into November.

Late November then, when all thoughts were towards summer the spring rains finally arrived.

There were heavy, violent storms in the last week of November and then again in the first one of December. The seasons have now finally turned.

Those storms arrived with great force. Torrential rain and gale force winds. In many parts of the country they were destructive bringing down trees and power lines.

Fortunately my house and neighbourhood escaped the worse of the damage. Although after the first the electric was off for more than a day and after the second the water was off for a couple.

Now though with water returned to the land Paraguay is again looking green and everywhere plants are rushing to grow.

I also understand that at long last the water levels in the rivers are starting to return to normal.

Now there is the heat of summer to look forward to but as climates everywhere change much uncertainty as to how settled that will be and thereafter how dry future winters will be.