June rainfall was 18.6 mm and the three-month total for April to June was 49 mm. We are now in rain drought as defined by the Bureau of Meteorology.

Water levels in farm dams were topped up last December but there has been no significant general runoff in the last six months. The average period between runoff events is five months.

Locally, drought has less impact on pastures in the winter than in other seasons. Growth is suppressed by cold when the temperature is less than ten degrees, even when the soil is moist.

The Met. Bureau also defines the ending of a drought. To break it we need (in round figures) more than 120 mm in one month or a three-month total of more than 210 mm.

Totals as high as these are relatively infrequent. Winter is normally our driest season and it is unlikely that the drought will officially end before the coming spring.

Drought is more frequent than some people may think. Braidwood has experienced defined drought in 28 per cent of months during the past 100 years.

The last drought here ended in August 1998. The 34 months since then is a relatively long time. The longest drought-free period was 69 months between June 1958 and February 1964.

There have been four previous drought periods which started in July and they lasted for between six and eleven months. The most recent of these was from July 1994 to the following May.

The longest drought at Braidwood lasted twenty seven months between September 1945 and November 1947. During the five years 1979-83 there was a fifty three month period with only seven millimetres of runoff.

Both the National Climate Centre and my own analyses indicate that an El Nino is not likely to develop in the Pacific this year, however, cloud bands bringing moisture from the Indian Ocean are likely to be less frequent than normal.