Northern Tablelands Local Land Services

Variable conditions continue across the region

• Year-to-date rainfall has been well below median across much of the region, impacting on-ground conditions. Large parts of the region remain in the NSW-CDI Drought Affected category.
• Above average May rainfall has provided some short-term relief, particularly in the north of the region.
• This rainfall has likely increased confidence for areas where cereal or fodder crops were sown early, with soil moisture levels improving over the last several weeks.
• Although the rain has helped restore on-farm water supplies, it is unlikely to alleviate the coming winter feed gap being managed by livestock producers.
• On ground reports indicate many livestock producers have actioned their drought management strategies early, with destocking, confinement, or lot feeding of stock.
• Further follow up rainfall will be critical to sustain any improvements from recent rainfall.

Click on the scroll bar below the map to compare with previous months.

The DPIRD Drought Forecast suggests that most of the region is likely to be in the NSW-CDI Drought Affected category at the end of August 2026 (issued 31 May 2026).

• Some areas around Glen Innes, Ashford and Inverell are also likely to enter the more severe Drought category.
• The forecast is being driven by long-term rainfall deficits, along with the increased chance of below median rainfall for the coming three months.
• There is moderate to high model agreement and low to high past accuracy for this forecast period.

Normalised Difference Vegetation Index

Plant greenness levels are highly variable across the region for the March to May period.

• Large parts of the region are experiencing below average greenness, due to warm temperatures, and below average rainfall over the past few months.
• The full influence of rainfall in late May will be available in the next Update.
• Note that some of the extremely negative NDVI areas (brown patches) are water bodies.

The NDVI anomaly is a useful measure of vegetation density and plant health. It estimates the amount of green vegetation there is in the landscape compared to what is expected at the given time of year, against the baseline period 1987 - 2020.

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Individual Drought Indicators

A drying trend remains across the region.

• The decline in one or more of the drought indicators is being observed more broadly across the region.
• While late autumn rainfall has slowed the recent decline in the underlying indications, further substantial rainfall is needed to trigger short-term recovery of the drought indicators.
• DPIRD continues to monitor this region closely.

Observing the trends of the underlying drought indicators of Soil Water, Plant Growth and Rainfall is useful in tracking long-term changes in conditions.

Find out more about the underlying drought indicators here: https://www.dpird.nsw.gov.au/climate_applications/interactive-drought-map/Learn-more/understanding-the-cdi-phases

To access a Drought History chart for your Parish, visit the Seasonal Conditions Information Portal.