Roads and paddocks in a WA country town have flooded after it received more than one third of its annual rainfall in just 72 hours, but instead of less, locals say they want more.
The town of Hyden sits 330 kilometres east of Perth and has an average March rainfall of 23 millimetres, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, but those figures were eclipsed after its rain gauge recorded 118mm from Saturday to Monday.
The rain was a welcome relief for the agricultural town, which had seen low rainfall and falling soil moisture during the hot and dry summer months.
Hyden’s average March rainfall of 23mm was eclipsed by the end of the weekend.(ABC Great Southern: Mark Bennett)
Land has ‘never seen a flow before’
The volume was so much that Hyden farmer and former president of the West Australian Farmers Federation Colin Nicholl said it pushed water to some parts of the land that were traditionally dry.
“The rain has fallen extremely heavily. It’s flooded across paddocks. We’ve seen water flow where we’ve never seen a flow before,” he said.
“We’ll have to wait for quite a few days before we can get out. You can’t even get near the paddocks now. We’ll have to wait for the paddocks to dry out.”
Dennis Gittos, who grows grain at East Hyden, received over 50 millimetres on Sunday.(ABC Great Southern: Mark Bennett)
One of those farms belongs to Dennis Gittos, who grows grain about 30 kilometres down the road at East Hyden and, like others, is keeping an eye on the gauges.
“We had 43mm [Saturday] and another 53mm [Sunday], so it’s been quite wet and that’s on top of the 36mm we had last weekend.”
The region, which averaged 341mm a year, was used to sporadic heavy falls, but Mr Gittos said receiving more than a third of its annual rainfall in three days was rare.
“We get it now and then. It’s not something that’s completely uncommon, but when they do come this time of the year, it seems to come quite heavily and a fair bit of it,” he said.
“You take it while you can, and we’ll certainly take it now.
Parts of the Great Southern and South West recently recorded its lowest soil moisture on record.(Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)
Rain respite for drying region
Mr Gittos said added moisture in the soil early in the season meant more opportunity for planting, particularly after parts of the Great Southern and South West regions recorded their lowest soil moisture on record.
“It’s still early March, but it does give us the confidence to get some canola in early,” he said.
“There’s a few paddocks that we probably weren’t gonna necessarily put into canola. Might have gone to barley, but I think they will now.
“It’s the start of March. There’s still a long, long way to go, but it’s quite nice.”
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The rainfall has also bolstered the region’s water utilities. The Hyden Humps Dam, fed by runoff from Humps Mountain, is sitting at 92 per cent capacity — according to the latest data from the Water Corporation.
Growers like Reuben Smith, who farms 75 kilometres south west of Hyden at Kuender, are hopeful water will flow into dams that have sat dry over summer.
“We haven’t had a really big rainfall event here on this farm for a little while now,” he said.
“Last year we put in a 12,000 cube dam and it’s still dead dry at the bottom. It hasn’t had enough to get water running so I’m hoping this event now is enough to get that going.”
‘Fingers crossed’
Mr Smith said the lack of moisture in the soil and water in dams had many in the farming community nervous about what, and when, to seed, but the rainfall would help alleviate some of the stress.
“Prior to these couple of events, you could feel there was a bit of negativity around, going to a couple of clearing sales and talking around town the last few weeks,” he said.
“But the mood’s really picked up on the back of this. Farmers are starting to get a bit of direction and there’s a bit of positivity coming back into it.
“The soil is fairly saturated now, so if we can get a good drop now on top of that, we could really run some water, fingers crossed.”
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Posted 21h ago21 hours agoMon 4 Mar 2024 at 7:03am, updated 17h ago17 hours agoMon 4 Mar 2024 at 10:54am
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