The rain was a huge boost to some stations in the NSW Far West on Wednesday, but east of Broken Hill they were also celebrating the end of woolgrower Nick Andrews' beard.
The Andrews' farm hasn't had decent rain for 21 months there and Nick vowed he wouldn't shave until it rained more than an inch on their station. Yesterday the rain came down, so much so, it was running "two feet" past the station house. Of course, it came just as he was mustering and shearing at Farmcote.
But not only the sheep were shorn, so was Nick's beard. "Great news, no beard" a friend posted about Nick finally getting rid of the straggly facial growth.
But back to the rain - his farm Farmcote received 36mm. "It'll be good, it's a start," he told the ABC of the fall. Farmcote had already reduced its flock from 16,000 to 5,000 because of the drought, and believe it or not, feed, not water, was the issue. He knew it was raining when his wife rang to say her car was bogged.
"Yeah, if it was going to rain it had to be this week," Nick told The Land. Luckily it was only a light fall around the shearing shed so they could keep things moving.
There were other good falls reported in the western areas on stations, Springhill Station with 50mm, Wampo 25mm, one at Ivanhoe of 44mm over two places and a storm west of Bourke brought 60mm. There was 15mm at Menindee. The storm rain wasn't widespread but it was welcome where it fell.
The trough across NSW is being fed by moisture from the Tasman Sea and is slowly moving across the state, bringing welcome relief to firefighters with a reduction in the fire conditions. Rain is expected across most of the state until Monday, with expected totals from 30-80mm from the south to the north. The storm rain though will be localised and some areas may get heavier falls than others. People have been warned to keep a close eye on storm warnings throughout NSW in the next five days.
Northern NSW Storm Watch posted a video of a storm near Tingha in northern NSW yesterday where almost 70mm fell at Green Valley farm causing a flash flood as a dam overflowed. Video courtesy of Storm Watch NSW and Steph Stewart.
Steph Stewart told The Land: "Couldn't believe it...haven't seen that much water for a long time,those dams were empty before Christmas...like so many out this way were,and some still are ....we were carting water and feeding stock ,so this has made life that little more easier for us...now just to keep fingers crossed it heads out west and helps others as it has for us."
Gundagai was hit with a storm rain "bomb" on Thursday. It started 15kms south of Coolac and kept coming pelting down about 25mm in 30 minutes. The Land's Stephen Burns reported.