South Australia’s wild weather washes out hopes for drought-breaking rain

South Australia may finally have seen some long-awaited rain, but drought-stricken farmers say the wild weather may actually have made their situation worse.

A wild storm that dumped more than 30 millimetres of rain in some parts of parched South Australia will do more harm than good for many drought-stricken farmers, industry experts say.

The cold, wintry blast caused widespread dust storms across many rural communities and sparked numerous road closures, isolated flooding and mass power outages. But hopes of statewide significant rain failed to eventuate.

Grain Producers SA chief executive Brad Perry said dust storms on Monday morning which reduced visibility on many country roads to near zero were heartbreaking for farmers, especially those who had dry-sown crops in the hope of receiving a season-breaking rain.

“Grain producers are fully relying on rain to get crops up and there hasn’t been much of it,” Mr Perry said.

“I’ll take what I can get but, you know, today’s events so far have delivered more wind and dust than rain, unfortunately.

“The drought hasn’t finished – there certainly hasn’t been the breaking rain that we need across the state for grain producers.

“Unfortunately, the dust and the wind is going to do quite a bit of damage too for some areas that have already been seeded. We may have to see some reseeding, which is an extra cost to growers.”

Mr Perry said subsoil moisture for much of the state was about 45 millimetres in deficit after one of the driest spells on record.

“In most areas across the states that means that we need to get a serious soaking to be able to classify a breaking rain for the grain industry and certainly we’re running out of time.

“It’s pretty heartbreaking for some farmers watching their topsoil blow around in front of them and not a lot of rain coming down.”

Willow Creek dairy farmer Wes Hurrell has to get hay from Western Australian, at a great cost, because the rain has come too late. Picture: Dean Martin

High winds blow up the dust as sheep move in a paddock near Manoora in SAs Mid North on Monday. Picture Mark Brake

By mid afternoon on Monday, Parndana on Kangaroo Island topped the state’s rainfall tally, receiving nearly 40mm since the heavens opened late on Sunday night.

Some farmers on the Fleurieu received about 30mm and a downpour of 18mm at Victor Harbor sparked localised flooding. Adelaide Airport received 10mm by 4pm.

But official rain figures in most of the state’s crucial farming areas including in the Mid North, Yorke Peninsula and Eyre Peninsula hovered around the 3mm mark.

In the heart of Yankalilla, fifth-generation dairy farmer Wes Hurrell was cautiously optimistic about the rain, yet the spectre of a feed crisis remains.

“We’ve had little bits and pieces,” Mr Hurrell said after recording about 30mm of rain in the past week.

“There is no set pattern for openings anymore,” he said, describing rain across the state as “very, very staggered.”

With rain comes hope for the future, but Mr Hurrell warns that the local agricultural community is still far from safe.

He said consecutive years of below-average spring rain had left feed sources critically low, forcing farmers like him to now look at paying almost 80 per cent more to secure feed from WA to ensure their livestock is fed.

Fellow dairy farmer Perrin Hicks, who runs Hicks-Jacobs Dairies just out of Mt Compass, said the 28mm that fell on his property was a “welcome relief”.

“It is a lot less stressful knowing that we’ve finally had a bit of rain,” he said. “It’s going to take five or six weeks for the feed to really become high enough to graze … But certainly the future looks brighter.”

Peterborough primary school teacher Ayla Conway holds her baby boy Jasper as he sees rain for the first time. Picture: Mark Brake

At Peterborough, holding her seven-month-old Jasper in her arms, Ayla Conway enjoyed watching her seven-month-old baby Jasper experience rain for the first time.

The town had received just 2mm of rain by Monday afternoon but the local teacher and mother-of-two hoped there was more on the way.

“The drought just affects everyone – the farmers have been struggling,” she said.

“We’ve had friends who had to bump (euthanise) sheep off and chuck them in the freezer just to keep going.”

At the peak of Monday’s storm, more than 16,000 SA Power Networks customers were without electricity and the State Emergency Services responded to more than 230 calls for help – mostly for fallen trees and minor flood damage.

A surfer at West Beach Boat Ramp in Adelaide on Monday. Picture: Tim Joy

Wind gusts of more than 100 km/h were recorded in parts of the state and creeks overflowed causing flooding and road closures in the South East town of Kingston.

Sealink ferries to Kangaroo Island were cancelled and a flight to Port Lincoln axed.

In the southern suburbs, there was chaos on the roads when floodwaters submerged a key road between Port Noarlunga and Port Noarlunga South. The area surrounding Port Noarlunga’s Jubilee Park Adventure Playground was also under water and flooding spread into a newly upgraded carpark and kayak storage area.

Even local wildlife was impacted with a kangaroo filmed swimming through the now-flooded marshland, which is normally dry.

There was more traffic chaos in Adelaide’s north after a large tree was blown over, blocking two lanes of southbound traffic on Main North Rd, Blakeview.

– with Dylan Hogarth, Taylor Mason and Shashi Baltutis

Originally published as South Australia’s wild weather washes out hopes for drought-breaking rain