Hopes rise as rain falls

Drivers were happily bogged for the first time in ages around Walgett on Monday and Tuesday, with patchy falls of up to 25 millimetres in places, as farmers headed into to town to compare notes.

The district has endured three years of searing drought. Most graziers have de-stocked completely and croppers have missed out on at least two consecutive harvests and still aren't out of the woods this season.

Walgett mixed farmer Greg Weber, "Fairlands", said the rain would help with pasture growth but more than 200mm was needed to get his operation back on track.

While the falls this week were a start, more good news can be found in Weatherzone's forecast of a low to medium likelihood of follow-up rain for the far North West in the coming weeks.

Further afield, producers around Bourke got falls of up to 42mm by Tuesday morning.

At Hungerford, Joe Baty, "Muella", said he had only received about 15mm, but further west of the Paroo River there had been good falls of about 40mm, and even 50mm near Wilcannia.

But these falls had been patchy and varied.

He said while the latest falls at "Muella" had not been as high as in other areas, overall the situation was reasonable: "we're not too bad here, and the feed is alright".

On the NSW/Queensland border, 90 kilometres north-west of Wanaaring, David and Stacy Keane, "Waverley Downs", received about 41mm.

"We've had some good rain across the past few days, which started on Sunday night," Mrs Keane said.

"(However), we'll need more follow-up rain for it to really make a difference."

Mrs Keane said this rain would help to freshen up some of the fodder for the cattle on agistment, for which they were also feeding out a lot of dry mix.

Near Moree, at Gravesend, grazier Ron Caccianiga said there hadn't been much rain in the past few weeks, but the situation wasn't desperate.

"The serious dry broke for us about Christmas," he said.

Further south, Nyngan received 33mm since the start of the week, reaching its monthly average of the same amount, while Trangie, also on 33mm, was just shy of eclipsing its June average figure of 36mm.

Other highlights included 30mm for Dubbo, and in the state's south, 33mm for Corowa (although those centres have June rain averages of 51mm and 56mm respectively).

Tamworth received 47mm on Tuesday night, and Manilla 52mm, according to Rod Hazell of Hazell's Farm and Fertilizer, Tamworth.

"We're getting reports this morning from customers who have water running and dams filling which they haven't had for a long time. It will just be beautiful for that cropping country," he said.

Queensland and NSW have ended up receiving the best of this moisture with falls on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday with the system heading further towards the east coast on Wednesday and offshore on Thursday.

Weatherzone meteorologist Kim Westcott said behind this system there appeared to be a further system generating in South Australia, which contained some rain, but those falls were not expected to be as heavy as this week's rain.

"There's also a deep low pressure off Western Australia, which should move across NSW next Tuesday or Wednesday; there's some cold air as well, so we might see some snowfalls."

Landowners in the state's south said minor falls had provided hope, but more was needed.

Scott Robb of "Danbury" at Ungarie recorded nearly 25mm overnight on Tuesday and was expecting more on Wednesday.

"It was getting pretty desperate so it was a timely fall," Mr Robb said.

"We spread urea yesterday on our crops in anticipation."

Barellan's Betina Walker, "Whispering Pines", said a fall of 20mm was not enough.

"We desperately need more, 50mm would have been great," Mrs Walker said, but she was still positive about the good start, which she said would keep everything going.

Stephen Huggins, "Eurolie", near Hay, recorded 12mm overnight on top of 10mm 10 days ago and Wagga Wagga recorded 21mm for the week.