It's the rain many have waited for for so long: widespread soaking rain, not storms sending down torrents of rain that just runs off oven-baked soils or falls down the cracks.
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The possible rain event is set to start from Wednesday in the north and it has many agronomists excited if it eventuates and spreads south.
A European weather model has the rain well over 120mm for areas around Moree in the next five days.
Oz Forecast has it up to 120mm, and current Bureau of Meteorology has rain falling on the North-West Slopes of between 40mm to 120mm.
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The Moree district has already had over 100mm in storm rain but what didn't fall on the town of Moree - where locals joke the town is now drought free - was merely disappearing down the cracks of dried up fields in the agricultural district.
What is exciting about this next rain event is that it is mainly coming through showers and "widespread rain", according to a BOM forecaster, although the Bureau warns there may be embedded storms bringing heavier falls within the system.
What is fairly sure, according to the BOM, is that the north and north-west of the state should get widespread rain through the later part of this week. A trough will stall over the north of the state and will be fed by moisture from a high over the Tasman.
There is strong hope this trough will move down through the state over the next week, bringing good falls also to southern areas, helping farmers, and also giving hope of rain on the firegrounds on the South Coast and ranges that are still burning.
A Bureau forecaster said he didn't want to offer any great hope of rain further south than northern NSW as of Monday's predictions, and it was too early to predict what would happen.
A computer generated model though gives some extraordinary rain predictions for much of eastern NSW - but the Bureau insists such a model can be wildly wrong.
Already some farmers are planting forage sorghum on the back of the recent rain and more rain will give them a chance to plant mung beans. But it will take at least 100mm of soaking rain in the north-west before anyone would even consider a wheat crop in an area once described as the Golden Triangle for its rich black soil and high protein wheat crops. Then there was that small chance the heavy storm rain that fell right through the cracks could meet up with the top soil moisture from this rain event. That would be very handy.
John Ellicott
journalist and author
journalist and author
