THE Bureau of Meteorology has painted a very attractive picture of widespread rain over the next eight days.
Showing excellent falls for across virtually all of eastern Australia and across the top of the nation, the computer modeling indicates 50mm to 100mm across much of Queensland's grain growing country.
At present a trough extends across the Gulf of Carpentaria and Cape York Peninsula into the northern Coral Sea, with showers and thunderstorms continuing across the far north.
According to BoM a surface trough over the southern interior will act as the focus for a band of showers and storms extending from the northwest of the state to the south east over the coming week.
A southerly change will cross south eastern Queensland on Tuesday, leading to much cooler conditions.
BoM says this feature is likely to sink south on Wednesday and Thursday. It will act to enhance shower activity and may produce some thunderstorms over far south eastern Queensland.
The predicted rain comes as Meat and Livestock Australia reports the national cattle herd is expected to fall to its lowest level since 1992.
According to MLA's 2020 Cattle Industry Projections drought conditions in most key production areas prompted widespread destocking in 2019.
Financial pressures on producers were also compounded by severe flooding in north Queensland in 2019, and more recently, devastating bushfires.
MLA senior market analyst Adam Cheetham said while recent useful rainfall was encouraging, further widespread follow up rainfall was still required.
The national herd is forecast to decline by 5.8 per cent to 24.7 million head at the end of June, representing a fall of 12.4pc since June 2018.
