FINALLY, there is the welcome news parts of southern Australia will receive a long-awaited true autumn break, with the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) forecasting up to 50mm over much of Gippsland in Victoria over the next three days.
The bad news, however, is that the vast majority of the rain will remain concentrated in Victoria’s south-east and over Tasmania.
There will be some lighter falls pushing into the NSW Monaro and across western Victoria, but other areas still looking for substantial rain will once again miss out.
BOM senior forecaster Michael Efron said the rain would evolve from a vigourous low passing through Victoria from Wednesday night onwards.
He said moisture would feed into a southerly flow, depositing the heaviest falls on the southern side of Victoria’s ranges.
“There will be 30-50mm through lowland Gippsland, but that figure will grade higher to 50-100mm on average over the ranges with isolated higher totals at places like Mount Baw Baw possible.”
Over Victoria’s cropping belt, where farmers are anxiously scanning the skies for follow up rain after light falls generally between 5-15mm last week, the news is less rosy.
“There could be up to 10mm for the Mallee and northern Wimmera, while the southern Wimmera could see 10-15mm and the south-west 10-20mm,” Mr Efron said.
Through NSW, the only cropping regions likely to see rain will be the eastern Riverina, while SA will see only light falls in coastal areas.
Mr Efron said the front would not bring just rain, but also freezing temperatures.
“For Victoria, it is expected to be the coldest day on Thursday since last September and there will be snow down to 800 metres, which includes places like the Grampians and the Macedon Ranges.”
He said Friday would see strong winds develop.
“We’re going to put out a sheep graziers’ warning for all of Victoria at some stage today,” he said on Wednesday.
Brett Hosking, Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) vice president and a farmer at Quambatook in the eastern Mallee, said farmers in his area were looking for a substantial fall, but added any showers would be handy after the 8mm he received last week.
“Last week’s rain means it is no longer totally dry so there’s the risk of crops germinating but not having enough moisture to emerge, so we really want some further rain,” Mr Hosking said.
He said farmers in the area had been dry sowing but added many were not working excessive hours.
“People don’t want to go too hard just as yet, they are just steadily working away while watching the forecasts.”
The rain will be welcome in Gippsland, where farmers have been faced with drier than average conditions for over a year in many cases.