It allows life to exist, grows our food, is used in the production of almost everything we consume and in South Africa the right to water is written into the constitution.

Rain is valued so much in another Southern African nation, Botswana, that the Setswana word for rain, pula, is used as the name of the national currency.

Rain in this desert country is of economic value, much like Australia’s driest corners.

With 45.4 milimetres of rain falling in Bega between the hours of 9am on Wednesday and 9am on Thursday many residents with water tanks and gardens will be enjoying the recent downpours.

And after last year’s wet summer many people are probably also wondering if we are headed into another wet season.

With the Littleton Gardens work being hindered and many craters in bitumen and dirt roads forming, others may not be so happy.

The effect of the weather on people’s moods has been known for decades and in temperate climates like Bega people tend to become more stressed when the weather is unstable or overcast, and the effect is supposed to be felt more by men than women.

This of course doesn’t include at the end of a drought when we probably feel like having a dance in the mud and laughing towards the sky.

I have always found the smell of rain on grass one of my favourite things, especially after a long dry spell.

According to the science journal Nature, the source of this smell is an oil produced by plants called petrichor, which is absorbed by rocks and soil before being released into the air around you when it rains.

This year MIT scientists in the United States used high-speed cameras to record how the smell moves into the air and found that when raindrops fall, air forms bubbles in pores that float to the surface releasing aerosols carrying bacteria, viruses and a smell from the dirt.

Raindrops that move slowly seem to produce more aerosols, which explains why the smell is strong after light rain.

Some scientists believe my love for the smell is because our ancestors relied on rain for their survival.

Alasdair McDonald