Unseasonal rain brings relief to Longreach

In what should be one of the driest times of the year, landholders in a 100 kilometre radius around Longreach have recorded falls of between 25 and 50 millimetres at the start of the week, more than double the monthly average.

Longreach's 59mm was its heaviest in more than three years and heaviest June rain in 81 years.

Nearby, Barcaldine received 53mm, a one-year high and an 11-year high for June.

A week earlier Longreach recorded 34.4mm on the first official day of winter, and 13mm three days later.

Further north and east, Ilfracombe, Muttaburra and Aramac areas reported falls of 75mm and more last week and have welcomed the top-up for parched grass tussocks.

The storms have brought with them a number of road closures to various sections of the Landsborough Highway, holding up traffic for some hours as creeks overflow.

One couple overjoyed at the break in the season are Dan Medill and Joanne Robertson at Arundel, halfway between Barcaldine and Longreach.

They had measured 65mm to lunch on Monday and probably another 20mm by nightfall.

It comes on top of 50mm a week earlier and Dan said this rain would boost the growth of herbage that was just starting to respond to the earlier fall.

“You can breathe again,” he said. “You don’t realise that you’ve stopped breathing until something like this happens. It’s pure invigoration.”

Dan said there were still lots of people who had missed out on one or both of the rain bands of the past fortnight but said they strengthened the impression that the El Nino was over and that people could look forward to spring.

“We also had two inches in April, that saved us. Before that, we’d had two inches in 20 point falls the year before.

“Our big year before that was 2012. There wasn’t a lot the year after but soil moisture was stored up.

“The last time we had winter rain was probably in the 1990s, and maybe 2012. You can get rain most months but it’s the follow-up that’s unusual.”

Any grass that tried to grow from falls of rain in the past two summers faced extreme heat, Dan said.

“It was like growing lettuce on the bitumen.”

He said his Mitchell grass tussocks hadn’t responded to the rain but thought they would show some life in the spring.

“I expect Flinders and native millet is what will come away now,” he said.

New trough predicted

The low pressure trough bringing this rain is now weakening, causing rain to become lighter and patchier. 

However, the system is broadening, causing patchier falls over a larger area of western Queensland.

After the region dries out some more rain is likely next weekend due to the probable arrival of another trough moving in from the west.

The central west is doing much better so far this year in terms of rainfall compared to the last few years.

Longreach has now had about 310mm for the year to date, a bit above the long-term average and almost as much as the whole of 2014 and 2015 combined, when 333mm fell.

  - Additional reporting by Brett Dutschke, Weatherzone