Australia Weather News

The effects of drought linger, but the season has taken a turn for the better in western Victoria.

Three months ago, ABC Rural visited farmers battling a crippling drought and holding out for rain.

Just days later, a decent rain — the first for the year — finally arrived on the King's Birthday long weekend.

At long last, barren paddocks started to turn green, and more rain has fallen in the months since. 

The season now sits in the balance; the landscape is green, but a kind spring is needed, bringing plenty of rain and mild temperatures.

'Things were pretty bleak'

It was a much happier Clayton Caldow welcoming the ABC to his farm this past week.

When the ABC last visited, the drought situation was "real bad" and he was flat out feeding sheep.

"Both 2024 and 2025 the starts for the year, the old fellas reckon it's as bad as it's ever been," he said.

"Since you were here we haven't had an abundance of rain, but it's coming along pretty good," he said as he strode through a crop of oats that were barely visible during the ABC's previous visit.

"It's a good feeling."

Mr Caldow said the financial, physical and mental strain of handfeeding sheep was finally easing, although he was "still trickling out a few beans" to sheep in paddocks with the poorest feed.

"The pressure of sheep feeding and writing out a lot of bills for hay and grain has been massive for a lot of people," he said.

One silver lining of this drought has been record-high sheep and lamb prices, giving farmers some confidence that the endless stream of money spent on feed has been worthwhile.

"We're banking on a $200 average this year for our lambs; two years ago it was $130 to $140 average," Mr Caldow said.

'Plenty of potential'

In reliable cropping country between Minyip and Rupanyup, it was also a "shocker" first half of the year, and the King's Birthday break was much later than grain growers had hoped for.

 "The first six months were extremely dry and had us wondering," Coromby farmer Paul Petering said.

"But June and July we've had average rainfall, so things have turned around and look a bit more promising now."

A "false break", or not enough rain to cause complete crop germination, came on Anzac Day.

"That germinated some stuff, but the rest never germinated until the rains came in the second week of June," Mr Petering said.

"That will make it complicated if we're wanting to cut hay, because you don't want the grain starting to form in the head when you're pressing hay.

"But we're still in the game. We've got a good crop base, there's a little bit of stored moisture, but we're certainly going to need a spring to get us home."

There is no such thing as an ideal world in farming, but if there was, Mr Petering knows how he would script it.

"It'd be lovely to get 40 millimetres for August and another 40mm for September and a little bit at the start of October, and then all being well, it could just shut off," he said.

Positive outlook

Farmers hoping for a kind spring will take confidence from the Bureau of Meteorology's latest long-term outlook, released last week.

Senior forecaster Jonathan How said while just a forecast, there was plenty of cause for optimism.

"We are expecting above-average rainfall for pretty much the entire state, with the odds of having above-average rainfall the highest across western parts of Victoria, and less so across eastern parts," he said.

"What we are seeing in not just the Australian model, but also the other international models, is that we are looking at conditions conducive to above-average rainfall."

Mr How said while most models rated the El Niño-Southern Oscillation climate driver as neutral, they predicted a negative Indian Ocean Dipole.

"That can push more rain across central Australia and into northern and western parts of the state," he said.