The latest monthly and quarterly seasonal status maps updated on Beef Central’s weather pages yesterday highlight the two faces of Australia’s season heading into spring.

While many cattle producing regions are carrying last summers’ good season forward, dry conditions are also taking hold in increasingly large areas.

National rainfall relativity maps for June, July and August reveal a drier than average winter across most parts of Australia away from the eastern coast.

The Bureau of Meteorology confirmed yesterday that after one of the wettest summers on record, national winter rainfall for 2011 was 12 percent below average.

The 2011 winter was the first drier than normal season recorded across Australia since the spring of 2009.

However many areas still appear to be carrying good to fair stands of paddock feed heading into spring.

Monthly pasture biomass maps show higher than average total standing dry matter for large areas of northern Western Australia, the Northern Territory and northern and central Queensland (to view click here)

But they also show the lack of feed available in several areas including eastern and southern WA, central southern Queensland and central northern NSW and central South Australia.

Rainfall relativity maps also show that while most parts of Tasmania and eastern Victoria received a wetter than normal winter, most of Victoria also experienced a drier than average season through winter. 

• To view seasonal update data in detail click on the Weather tab at the navigation bar at the top of this page, and then click on Seasonal Status in the sub-menu.