BATHURST is on track to record its driest June on record as the winter rain stays away.
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The city has recorded just 0.4 millimetres for the month and is unlikely to get any more before July begins, according to the forecast.
If the tap remains turned off for the next week, June 2017 will be officially drier than the previous record holder, June 1972, when just 0.8mm was in the gauge.
While some farmers are watching the skies nervously, Dave Lew isn’t complaining about the dry run, after the sodden winter last year put his turf farm operation behind by months.
“I have never seen the river come up and down so many times without a major flood,” he said of last year.
“It was like a tidal river.”
And once conditions were back to normal, “we had to go seven days a week just to catch up”, he said.
Mr Lew, of Greenacres Turf Farm near the Macquarie River, said he welcomes rain in the summer when the evaporation rate is high as it supplements his irrigation.
“But this time of year, a little bit every now and then is good,” he said.
Meteorologist Brett Dutschke said the weather pattern that has kept the rain away from Bathurst has been well-established, but it might soon start to break down.
“We have had a high pressure area over south-east Australia for the vast majority of the time this month and fronts have been exceptionally weak for this time of year and have been staying a long way south,” he said.
A large part of south-east Australia “has been exceptionally dry”, he said, as the significant fronts that would normally be expected have not appeared.
But there are signs of the weather pattern returning to something more normal.
“We could be getting more frequent fronts,” he said. “They may not necessarily be winter-type strength fronts, but at least the signs are trending towards that.
“We should get more rain and more frequent rain than what we have had in the coming few weeks. Beyond that, it's quite hard to say.”
For the short-term forecast, Mr Dutschke said there was a chance of rain for Bathurst on Sunday night.
“But it's possible we will get through the whole month without any more recordable rain,” he said.