FARMERS across parts of the eastern half of the State received some good falls of rain earlier this week and there is more good news on the way, with further falls forecast.
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Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) forecaster Rob Taggart said it looked like about two thirds of the State should see at least some rain during the coming days.
Importantly, he said there was more rain on the way for some of the north’s drought affected areas.
“The northern inland is looking like they should get some good falls, and there should be decent falls today and into Friday for the north east,” he said.
Weatherzone senior meteorologist Brett Dutschke said the heaviest falls in the coming days should be around the far north-east corner of NSW.
“There will be some heavy falls in northern NSW today, the showers will be pretty widespread across the State as well, with just a few pockets missing out around Ivanhoe.”
He said by the weekend the rain is expected to have eased to the west of the ranges and next week will begin to warm up again.
By mid next week there was a further chance of some heavy falls in some areas.
He expects today and tomorrow to bring falls of as much as 100mm in areas such as Grafton, Ballina, Tenterfield, Lismore and Casino.
Falls between 40mm and 80mm were expected in the Northern Tablelands; the North West Slopes and Plains should receive some reasonable falls from Thursday, between 20mm and 50mm, with the heaviest falls in the eastern and northern parts of the region.
There could even be some flooding given some areas like Glen Innes and Inverell have already received decent falls earlier this week.
“There were falls of more than 50mm in these areas, and they will probably be getting some more rain on Wednesday,” he said.
He said elsewhere across the State falls would be patchy at best.
The heaviest falls during the past few days were seen in the Illawarrra and South Coast, receiving from 100mm to 300mm.
“There is a huge amount of moisture in the atmosphere, and now we are getting the right triggers, including a slow moving, near stationary low pressure trough combined with cold upper level air.”
He said some of this rain, while not as heavy as in the east, had been stretching as far as the western NSW border into South Australia and down into Victoria.
According to the BoM, from 9am Saturday to 9am Wednesday this week the State’s top fall was recorded at Brogers Creek in the Illawarra receiving 374mm.
Beyond the Illawarra, Bowral received 92mm, Glen Innes airport 88mm, and Tweed Heads 83mm.
Armidale airport recorded 60mm and Gunnedah received 50mm.
In the 24 hours from 9am Tuesday to 9am Wednesday morning, 30mm to 80mm was recorded on the South Coast, the Tweed River area recorded 20mm to 30mm while the North West Slopes and Plains recorded falls ranging from 5mm to 15mm.
However, the rain that reached drought-affected areas of northern NSW and southern and Central Queensland during the past few days might have to last for a while, as the BoM forecasts another drier than normal quarter for the region.
For south-eastern Australia, the rainfall forecast is neutral, although all forecasts for the eastern States are overshadowed by the growing possibility of an El Niño pattern developing over winter.
The three-monthly rainfall outlook doesn’t offer much comfort for drought-afflicted areas of NSW and Qld, although many producers in the region have resigned themselves to waiting for the next monsoon for real relief from the dry conditions that set in during 2013.
At the same time, conditions are shaping up to be warmer than usual across most of the eastern States, holding out hope that if rain does fall, it will fuel some pasture growth.
Meanwhile, the odds of an El Niño are firming up.
Some US agencies have reported that an El Niño, if it eventuates, could be of similar intensity to the powerful event of the mid-1990s.
