Dousing fails to relieve drought-hit Australia
Date: 19-Sep-02
Country: AUSTRALIA
Up to 20 mm of rain doused parts of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia states in the past 24 hours, although rainfall levels remain far below average, Blair Trewin, of the bureau's national climate centre, told Reuters.
"A single rain event of this size is not going to break a drought," Trewin said.
Australia has slashed its forecast for the national wheat crop to 13.45 million tonnes this year, down 44 percent on last year's crop of 23.96 million tonnes, because of the five-month-old drought.
As a result, the government expects Australia's wheat exports in 2002/03 to fall to 13 million tonnes, including a stock drawdown of 5.5 million tonnes, from 16.8 million tonnes in 2001/02.
Australia vies with Canada as the world's second largest wheat exporter after the United States.
An even chance exists that rains in areas including northern New South Wales and southern Queensland will remain below average for the rest of the year, Trewin said.
"If it turns out that these rains are all we see for the next few weeks or months, then they are not going to be an awful lot of use," he said.
Some of the hardest rains fell in Western Australia state earlier in the week, although most of the precipitation was south of the state's main wheat belt, Trewin said.
Nationally, to get back to average rainfall for the year, above normal rainfall is needed for the rest of the year, he said.
"That's probably not going to happen," Trewin said, adding the dry conditions were being caused by an El Nino weather pattern.
"Even if it did happen, it's probably too late for a lot of farmers," he said.
