Floods on one end, drought on the other. Is this Australia's climate future?

Australia Broadcast Center

24-05-2025

As towns flood on one end of Australia, large areas further south are experiencing their worst drought on record. The people in these regions are preparing for life in a future climate.
Dry paddocks as far as the eye can see near Ararat in Western Victoria. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Above the rolling hills of Victoria's Central Highlands, grey clouds gather.
But once again, they will fail to bring the substantial rain the region so desperately needs.
Brown, dry, cracked earth on sheep farmer Charlie de Fegely's property, near Ararat in Western Victoria.
Normally green paddocks have been replaced by dirt and dust.
While endless days of rain and floods inundate the east coast, this is the reality of life in large swathes of southern Australia right now.
Farmer Charlie de Fegely is buying in 60 tonnes of feed a day for his flock of 10,000 sheep. There is nothing left for them to graze on at his property near Ararat.
"The B-double [trucks] are coming in quite regularly, we think each load is the last one," he says.
"But, not at the moment."
Sheep farmer Charlie de Fegely looks out on his property, near Ararat in Western Victoria. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Charlie is filling up his truck with the grain he has to buy to feed his sheep. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Grass has long disappeared from Charlie's paddocks, leaving dusty, dry soil. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
For the second year in a row, the traditional Autumn break — the first significant rainfall before the winter growing season — is yet to arrive.
Charlie has lived through four major droughts, the first when he was just 12 years old in 1967.
In 1982, he remembers shooting sheep in the paddock for weeks and dust storms that stretched to Melbourne.
But this prolonged dry period is the worst Charlie has seen, worse even than the Millennium Drought, which hit hardest here in 2006.
"This is probably the toughest couple of years I've had," Charlie says.
"All the others were just a failed winter, failed spring, and it broke the following autumn.
"This is by far the worst."
For the past 15 months, regions from Ceduna in South Australia all the way to Wilson Promontory, and western Tasmania have seen some of their lowest rainfall on record.
Some months, they barely recorded a drop.
The region hasn't seen substantial ran in more than a year.
The landscape has become desperately dry. Dust storms are now part of the weather forecast.
Farmers' dams are empty and feed is scarce.
Major water storages in South Australia and Victoria have plummeted.
Nature, too, is struggling, with waterways and wetlands no more than a puddle, and fears for endangered fish, insects, and other species.
The grim picture provides a glimpse into what the future here might look like as climate change increases the risk of drier and hotter conditions in southern Australia.
Selling off
The haunting images of dead livestock in paddocks may be absent, but farmers in this region are selling their livestock in drastic numbers.
Two hours west of Melbourne, at the Ballarat saleyards, thousands of cattle are being sold by desperate farmers.
Livestock is being sold in record numbers. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Farmers have run out of feed for their livestock. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
The cattle from Western Victoria are on their way to NSW and Queensland. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Just last week about 20,000 cattle were sold out of south-west Victoria, most headed to greener pastures in northern NSW and Queensland.
Emma Muir and her husband Peter have sold off one-third of their cattle with no grass left on their paddocks at Myrniong.
"It's completely bare," Emma says.
"This prolonged period of no rain has had a huge impact on our livestock and will have on our crops if it doesn't rain shortly."
She sees the toll it's taking on those around her.
"My husband, every morning, is reluctant to get up," Emma says.
"It's Groundhog Day again."
Emma Muir also had to resort to selling livestock amid the ongoing drought. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Despite the severity of this drought, there has been little impact on those living in major cities, with no water restrictions in Adelaide or Melbourne.
"Because Melbourne isn't impacted, they've got no understanding what we're doing and how tough we're doing it out here," Emma says.
"I hope that the government, both state and federal can just turn around and come and visit us.
"And say, 'I see you, we understand, and we will try and help the best we can.'"
With the capital cities spared from the drought, many farmers feel forgotten. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Dry as a bone
Further west, on the Wimmera plains, Victoria's prime cropping region, the soil is bone dry.
Paddocks have been sown by hopeful farmers, but if substantial rain doesn't arrive soon, crops will struggle to grow.
Across the border in South Australia, farmers have been doing the same.
A farm just outside Natimuk, in Western Victoria, with Dyurrite/Mount Arapiles in the background. 20/05/2025 ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Natimuk agronomist Martin Colbert was contracted by the local catchment authority earlier this year to do a series of soil samples from the South Australian border to the Grampians.
"Resoundingly, each of those holes across that 2.5 million hectares was dry," he says.
"We're talking not just a pocket of dry, we're talking a massive area that's dry."
Martin Colbert, an agronomist, is looking at the soil on a farm just outside Natimuk. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
He says all of the soil samples he took over millions of hectares were dry.
The situation is even worse in South Australia, he says. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
In this paddock and many others, there's no moisture down to 50 centimetres. Martin says in South Australia, where the soil doesn't hold the moisture as well, it's even worse.
"It's as dry as I've ever experienced," Martin says.
Dry seeding has become common in many South Australian farming regions. ( ABC Landline: Kerry Staight )
Building resilience
Despite the tough conditions, Charlie de Fegely's love of farming hasn't diminished.
With three generations living on the farm, including his two young grandsons, Charlie says there are reasons to be optimistic.
"What we need to do is build resilience in farmers," he says.
"We're in Australia, we have these dry periods."
Charlie's grandson, Archer. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
The de Fegely farm near Ararat, in the Central Highlands of Western Victoria. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Charlie's farm has a flock of about 10,000 sheep. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Charlie with his wife Liz, and the family dog. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Each drought has seen farming practices here change, including what they feed their sheep, what they grow in their paddocks, and, importantly, how they manage water.
"In 2006 we learnt that water is the big issue," Charlie says.
"That's when we put the excavators in and dug two dams and we then built a reticulated water system.
"We've spent a lot of money, so every paddock has water piped and we've got troughs."
The dam is amid a vast area of dry, brown soil on Charlie de Fegely's property. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Charlie invested in getting water piping through every paddock, so the troughs are still full. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Sheep graze under solar panels, which power the automated feeding stations. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Charlie has started to build solar-powered containment lots on his property. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
This drought Charlie has started implementing containment paddocks, with solar-powered automatic feeding lots.
"The feed systems that we're now putting in — intensification feeding systems, that'll be the big learning out of this drought for us.
"That will be the next way that we'll build resilience.
"In Europe, they're in the sheds during the winter, here, they'll be penned up during the summer."
Climate trends
Australia has a long history of droughts. But a lack of autumn and winter rainfall is something both the south-west and south-east of Australia are becoming increasingly familiar with.
What's more, the majority of climate projections show this trend continuing.
It's particularly stark in the south-west of Western Australia, where a strong drying trend extends back to the 70s.
Even the wettest parts of WA's South West, like Northcliffe, where farmer Wally Bettink is from, have seen dams completely empty in recent years. ( ABC News: Tyne Logan )
Climate scientists have been able to attribute those drying trends in WA to human-caused climate change, largely due to the burning of fossil fuels.
Since about the 90s, a similar trend has emerged in parts of south-eastern Australia — in approximately the same areas facing the dry this season.
While it's not of the same magnitude as WA, Monash University climate scientist Ailie Gallant said it was significant nonetheless.
"Particularly autumn, early winter, we've seen those reductions in rainfall in those parts of south-eastern Australia encompassing south-east South Australia, Victoria, and parts of Tasmania."
Kids from the Flinders Ranges in South Australia make the most of the tough times. ( ABC Landline: Kerry Staight )
It's something Charlie and his family are keenly aware of, proactively planning for hotter and drier conditions as climate change intensifies.
"We can reduce the size of the flock and inside 18 months, we can be back up to the stock numbers again," Charlie says.
"You've got to have flexibility in your system."
Charlie checks the solar-powered containment paddock. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Charlie de Fegely built a reticulated water system on his property. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Sheep line up along a feed trail on a dusty paddock on Charlie de Fegely's property. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Waiting for the rain
Cold weather this week has been an early sign that winter is around the corner.
Rain will eventually come, too.
But it's going to take a lot more than just one downpour — or even an average winter — to turn this drought around.
Many farmers in the drought area have dry sowed in the hope that the rains will come. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
"We need above-average rainfalls to achieve an average yield because we're now outside the optimum window," Natimuk agronomist Martin Colbert says.
"We do have a massive, massive battle ahead of us."
It also needs to come soon. As it gets colder, the growth becomes slower and the risk of damaging frosts increases.
"We could well be looking at potential low-yielding crops being belted even harder by successive frosts," Martin says.
Agronomist Martin Colbert says not only when, but how much it rains, matters. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
'Warriors' in a land of extremes
In the face of these extremes, it's farmers on the front line.
"Farmers that are still in the game now are actually seasoned warriors," Martin says.
"They know how to deal with the weather, they know how to deal with what's going on.
"It doesn't mean that they're not having mental health issues, but we've become accustomed with how to deal with it and how to be there for each other."
Farmers are at the front line as the climate changes. ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
The deeper into winter we get, the less drought will be on people's minds.
Particularly for regions in the midst of flooding or endless days of rain, like New South Wales.
Drone shot of patterns on the paddock on a farm just outside Natimuk, in Western Victoria, with Dyurrite/Mount Arapiles in the background. 20/05/2025 ( ABC News: Jess Davis )
Times like these show how different the weather story can be across Australia at any one time.
It's a land of extremes — something that is only expected to get worse as human-caused climate change takes hold.
Credits
Reporting: Jess Davis and Tyne Logan
Photography and videography: Jess Davis with additional photography from ABC Landline's Kerry Staight
Production: Fran Rimrod