Winter rain across much of Victoria dampens El Nino fears

The winter weather is playing favourites with some regions missing out on early winter falls while others had an ideal drop.

THE weather is playing favourites as talk of a looming El Nino continues to cast a shadow over confidence.

While predictions of big rain delivered across much of Victoria and southern NSW last week, they failed to materialise further north.

In central NSW, up to 100mm was forecast but just 10mm fell at Forbes in the past week, and 12mm at Cowra, while even further north, Moree recorded 9mm and Coonabarabran 8mm.

It is a grim situation for many of these key cropping areas with Dubbo, NSW, measuring 12mm last week, lifting the year-to-date rainfall to 177mm or 32 per cent of its average annual total. However most of this fell early in the year with just 1.1mm recorded in May.

Further south, farmers were rejoicing after large areas of Victoria and the Riverina received rain last week.

And some of the best falls have been across cropping regions of the Mallee and Wimmera, including Mildura with 52mm; Swan Hill, 85mm; Horsham, 36mm; and Charlton, 29mm.

It comes as a relief for worried farmers after the Bureau of Meteorology last week predicted the chance of an El Nino had ramped upfrom 50 per cent to 70 per cent, with its warning upgraded from “watch” to “alert” level.

Elders Ouyen’s Don McGregor said farmers in his district had recorded 20-25mm in the latest rain, which topped up falls from a fortnight ago.

“The timing is almost perfect,” Mr McGregor said.

“Over the past couple of weeks, we have received 43mm in two rainfall events and that will have joined up the moisture in the soil to what we had stored.

“The crops are up and everything is up and growing and it is still mild and warm.”

Mr McGregor said this week’s rain would assure the district “of some sort of crop” and if they could snag 50mm in August or September, the region’s farmers would have a great year.

“We really only need bits and pieces of rain now,” he said.

“Everyone is very relieved and it’s a great turnaround.”

Rain across much of southern NSW and Victoria has delivered an early winter drenching in the face of El Nino predictions.

While talk of El Nino continues, Mr McGregor said he did not follow computer models too closely.

“I prefer to look at nature rather than screens,” he said.

“I’d like to think that nature is telling us that we are going to have a good average year.”

Marong producer Rosemary Bailey said 50mm of rain last week had come on top of 25mm at the end of May, and 75mm in April.

She said it was an ideal start for crops, but was still conscious of predictions of El Nino.

“We always used to say we needed ran by Melbourne Show time as a bit of a guide so we will be hoping that we do get those spring rains,” Ms Bailey said.

“But at the moment, to be honest, it is probably a bit too wet and we certainly didn’t expect to get as much as we did last week.”