Thirsty earth

When I was a child in Iceland and the island was constantly "hit" by low pressure areas, bringing wind and rain/snow, I sometimes wished to live in a place of eternal sunshine. I have long since changed my mind on the subject, but now it feels we are living in such a place. For the last 4 months we have had an almost constant presence of high pressure area over northern Italy, the last "real" rain was the 8th of December, and then a few drops fell on the February 15th, a part from that every day has been dry. As this winter was exceptionally snowlight as well in the alps, the rivers are not filled with melted snow and are thus drier than they have been for the last 50 years. I know todays blip is unusual for me, but when I go on a walk by my river I always pass this channel that diverts water from my river and feeds a local hydroelectric power plant. For the last feew days the channel has been empty, there just is not enough water to feed it! I wanted the photo to reflect the bleakness of the situation. I have added as an extra a collage of photos taken from the bridge in the center of town, which show how low the water level is in the river (the one on the bottom right of the panel should show water flowing under the bridge, but there is just concrete)! This is no good news for agriculture that is soon going to have to use big quantities of water for irrigation of the fields!

If you know any good, functioning, rain invoking dance or ritual I'd like to hear about it!