Much of the state has experienced a drier than average July, with Nuriootpa’s weather station recording only 18.6mm for the month.
It’s the lowest July rainfall recorded at that site since records began in 2004, and the third year in a row that Nuriootpa has experienced July rainfall well below its average of 54.9mm, with 27.4mm recorded in 2018, and 36mm in 2019.
Bureau of Meteorology Senior Meteorologist, Mr Simon Timcke said the dry spell follows a decent start to the season.
“We had a reasonably good autumn eventually and a good start to winter,” he said.
“Nuri had 49mm in June, 47.4mm in May and 86.6mm in April. So it was quite a good period through April, May and June.”
Nuriootpa is still well short of its annual average of 427.1mm, so far recording 237.6mm for the year.
However the Bureau said most of South Australia has a 70-80 percent chance of receiving above median rainfall for the August to October period, due to El Niña affecting the north and east, and the Indian Ocean Dipole heading into a negative phase in the west.
“We’ve got those two climate drivers which are hopefully going to give us a better chance of rainfall over the coming three months,” said Simon.
That’s good news for Kapunda farmers, Janet and Graeme Waldhuter, who said dry conditions coupled with damaging frosts have hurt crops in the area.
“Wherever you drive and it’s yellow like that, the frosts have really hit it bad.. and it’s so dry, it’s just not growing,” said Graeme.
Janet has kept rain records for their property for decades, and this July, which recorded just 13.25mm, was the lowest they’d seen since 1997.
“Back in April we had the best opening rains for years, that’s always a sign of a good year, but it hasn’t carried through, which is very unusual,” she said.
Farmers all over the state are crossing their fingers that late winter rains will bolster the season.
“If we had an inch of rain all over South Australia now, you’d have farmers jumping around and carrying on, it’d be magic,” said Graeme.
