Rainfall past seven days

IN what is shaping as the most influential and widespread rain event in at least eight months, more than 100mm of rain has fallen across a substantial area of Queensland, cutting highways and reducing saleyard offerings.

Most of the rain has fallen in a band between Charleville in the south-west, up to Hughenden in the north. Further good falls have been recorded over the past seven days across the northwestern part of NSW and Central Australia.

The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting the same system to hang around for the rest of the week, bringing rain across the eastern states – particularly to areas of southern and central Qld.

According to the Qld traffic website the rain in Western Qld has cut the Landsborough Highway between Longreach and Barcaldine. The Landsborough appears to be the only major arterial shut at this stage, with access limited on a lot of smaller roads in the area.

Most the wet area is coming off a strong season last year and still has a body of feed that had been drying out after some warm weather in recent weeks. And there is a sense that this week of soaking rain will go a long way to setting it up for another season.

Rain over the past 24 hours,

Looking on social media, some notable falls include 171mm in three days at Lisnalee Station, south of Tambo, 106mm at Koreelah west of Charleville and 85mm at Victoria Downs near Morven.

The rain over the weekend has followed some good rain in dry parts of Northern New South Wales and Queensland last week, and Victoria/southern NSW the week before, where some areas also received more than 100mm.

As can be seen in the BOM eight-day forecast below, there is still plenty left in the current system, covering an enormous footprint across the top half of the Northern Territory, most of Queensland, all of NSW and Victoria and the eastern portion of South Australia.

BOM eight-day forecast

Markets volatile

Cattle markets have been highly volatile in recent weeks, particularly for restocker categories as dry conditions and changing rainfall forecasts have driven sharp weekly movements in supply and demand.

National cattle yardings fell 7pc last week to 54,403 head week-on-week, although the declining trend had already started the week before as the market anticipated upcoming rain. A week earlier, weekly saleyards numbers were at +63,000 head, and two weeks earlier (25 September) above 73,000 head.

Despite the return to a full selling week last week following the public holiday period, forecast rainfall encouraged some producers to retain stock.

All cattle indicators lifted last week, with gains of up to 11pc for the Restocker Yearling Heifer Indicator.

Saleyards offerings contract

Most saleyards offerings early this week are down, on account of the rain – either locally or in supply areas further north –  but there are no signs yet of NLRS sale cancellations at this stage. We will report back if that changes.

In some cases, sale cattle are already on the road.

Preliminary bookings for tomorrow’s Roma store sale show about 3500 head, but that is still subject to change. Dalby on Wednesday is currently talking 2700 head, down almost 1000 on last week – but last week’s Dalby and Roma sales were already well down on earlier levels, in anticipation of this week’s weather.

Warwick tomorrow is anticipating around 750, much the same as last week, while Gracemere looks like offering a mixed bag of around 1500.

Forbes sale in NSW held this morning went against the trend, with numbers lifting by 600 to 2283 head. Anticipation of greater restocker demand on the back of rain was a factor. The market was generally stronger, with yearling feeder steers firm to 6c better with prices ranging from 479-555c/kg for middle and heavyweights. Heavy steers and bullocks sold from 462-510c/kg, while cows were firm to 5c better with heavy finished cows from 390-417c/kg. The plainer cows showed the improvement selling from 383 to 394c/kg.