Riverina Local Land Services

Improvement in drought conditions continues for parts of the region.

• The region continues to manage drought conditions; however, follow-up rainfall in May has help improve conditions for some areas.
• Despite the recent rainfall, the region continues to manage the impacts of a prolonged drought event, limiting the extent and speed of recovery. Large parts in the west and east of the region remain in the NSW-CDI Drought Affected category.
• Continued follow up rainfall across the region will be critical to drive further improvements in the underlying drought indicators and maintain areas currently in the Recovery category.
• Producers are closely monitoring conditions, particularly surface water and feed availability, as they adjust planning and management decisions for livestock feeding or winter fodder programs.

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The most likely outcome from DPIRD’s Drought Forecast is for large parts of the region to be in the Drought Affected category at the end of August 2026 (issued 31 May 2026).

• Areas that had seen a recent easing of conditions are most likely to transition from the Recovery category back to the Drought Affected category.
• Other areas are likely to maintain or build on recent improvements and remain in the Recovery or Non-Drought category.
• There is low to high model agreement and low to moderate past accuracy for this forecast period.
• The DPIRD continues to closely monitor conditions in this region.

Normalised Difference Vegetation Index

Plant greenness levels are highly variable across the region.

• Many areas are recording near average to above average values for the March to May period. Below average values remain for some areas, particularly in the west of the region.
• 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

Drought indicators remain variable across the region.

• Recent rainfall has continued to have a positive effect on the drought indicators at some locations (e.g., Temora and Gundagai).
• The underlying indicators at many locations are currently fluctuating between the Drought Affected and Recovery NSW-CDI categories (e.g. Wagga Wagga). This is being driven by small changes in the Rainfall Index. Further rainfall will support a sustained transition into the Recovery category.
• For other locators (e.g., Hay), the drought indicator values remain steady.
• Continued follow up rainfall across the region will be critical to drive further improvements in the indicators and on ground conditions.

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.