More rain on the horizon
FELTON farmer Michael Meara has almost quadrupled last year’s total rainfall, in the first six months of 2020.
Last year Mr Meara received 147mm on his 405ha property.
This year he has received 430mm to date.
“It’s an incredible difference,” Mr Meara said.
“We’ve had more rain in the first couple of months of this year than we did in the whole of last year.”
At the weekend Mr Meara received 19mm at his house and 13mm over the rest of his farm where he grows grain and legumes.
“I’ve got barley in at the moment and going to be planting some chickpeas in next week,” Mr Meara said.
“It’s just getting across the line at the moment, but we’d like to see a couple hundred millimetres, spread out of course.
“Its been wetter but not the big wet they’ve been predicting yet.
“I’m hoping it’s going to be a decent season but I’m always cautious.
“It seems like there’s moisture in the air.”
Mr Meara said the drought was far from over.
“When the Condamine starts running and keeps running we’ll know the drought’s over,” he said.
“It’s been dry for a few years now.”
Climate modelling expert with the Northern Australian Climate Program Dr Chelsea Jarvis said June’s rainfall was average, but compared to the last few years it seemed like more.
“Looking ahead at the seasonal forecast, the whole Downs area and down to the NSW border, is quite likely to get at least the median rainfall if not above median,” Dr Jarvis said.
“From August to October, average rainfall is 114mm over those three months and we’re very likely to get that.
“There’s a 60 per cent chance of getting above median, up to 150mm.
“Above median is great news for farmers, unfortunately we can’t tell them how it’s going to fall- whether it will be 10mm here and there, or 80mm all in one go.”
Looking at the Southern Oscillation Index, Dr Jarvis said we could be heading into a wetter La Nina period.
“We’re seeing a shift to cooler sea surface temperatures which means we might head towards a La Nina,” she said.
“Sometimes they are strong and sometimes they’re weak. We probably need a fairly strong one to break the drought because it’s been so dry for so long.”