Victor Szwed
Dorothea Mackellar’s words “Of droughts and flooding rains” from “My Country” partially describes the very unusual weather conditions across Australia. Massive flooding has hit large areas of coastal Queensland and New South Wales a number of times this year while much of the inland areas as well as western and southern states have been experiencing drought conditions. It is unusual for the country to be experiencing the two extremes like this at the same time.
Daylesford’s rainfall for May was only 8.6mm, less than 10% of the 87.8mm average. For the first five months of this year we have received 142.8mm, less than half of our long-term average of 287.1mm to the end of May. This follows on from a relatively dry 2024 with rainfall only 74% of the annual average.
Daylesford’s water reservoirs are down to 35% compared to 65% this time last year.
Central Highlands Water (CHW) provided a briefing hosted by Daylesford Rotary at the end of May. Their briefing covered the introduction of digital water metres and a progress report the new 17km water pipeline that will be fully commissioned during 2026. A report on the Briefing was included in last week’s Wombat Post. CHW are utilising a water bore near Coomoora to add extra water to the local water supply. CHW advised that there are no plans to introduce additional water restrictions at this stage and they are monitoring the situation as normally higher winter rainfall boosts our reservoirs.
Melbourne’s reservoirs are at around 73% of capacity, well below the 87% level at this time last year.
Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) forecasting suggests that much of Australia is likely to receive above average rainfalls over the coming three months. However, there is no indication of above or below average rain for most of Victoria. Locally, our wettest months are usually June, July and August with each month averaging just over 100mm. Let’s hope that we do return to somewhere near “normal”.
Exacerbating things further, root zone moisture across most of Victoria and Western Australia is “very much below average” according to the BOM. Farmers in many parts of Victoria have missed out on the important Autumn rains and it is now getting too cold for pastures to grow even if they do receive some decent rains. Livestock exchanges at Ballarat and Mortlake have reported large volumes at recent sales as farmers destock.
Victor Szwed is a Daylesford resident who contributes a monthly weather summary to The Wombat Post.
