Drought?

That word that strikes dread into the hearts of gardiners ... drought.  We look to be heading into a very hot summer this year.  It's only December and we have had a few days where the murcury has hit 35 or more. And how much rain have we had?  Here in my little patch - nada, not a drop. For the entire month (so far) of December we have had no rain.
We have had a much looked for southerly change every couple of days but you can feel the earth heating up before the sun rises on those days where the temperature is going to be up. And no rain.
Yesterday was a hot one, 37 degrees and big clouds were building up over in the west over the back of the Blue Mountains.  I certainly looked like we were going to get ourselves a big thunderstorm but by about 4pm the clouds had burned off and the sky was that lovely brilliant blue that we have here in Aus on summer days. We did get a southerly change around 8pm that dropped the temperature by about 12 degrees but, no rain.
You can feel the atmosphere trying to squeeze some raindrops out but there is nothing happening.

I was watching the news this morning and one of the headliners was the snow and ice in China.  What a world of extremes we live in. The people in China are building a city out of the ice as a tourist attraction.  They are working in minus 23 degrees and yet here in the Southern Hemisphere we are facing one of the hottest summers on record.