It may have drenched some city office workers cycling to work and commuters rushing for peak-hour trains, but yesterday's rain did little for Melbourne's dams and mostly teased Victorian farmers.
For Mallee wheat farmer Geoff Nalder, the shower his farm received on Sunday afternoon only slowed the harvesting. His farm, 45 kilometres south-west of Swan Hill, received 2.5mm.
It was enough to delay harvesting his barley crop yesterday because of the crop's high moisture content, but the rain came too late for his wheat.
"Just nuisance value" is how Mr Nalder described the wet bit at the bottom of the rain gauge.
"It's not enough to do any good for any of the crops that still have some green in them.
"And for those that are ready to harvest then all it's doing is just slowing us down," he said.
Mr Nalder, president of the Victorian Farmers Federation Grains Group, said any more rain in the Mallee this season would not increase the wheat crop there because it would be too late.
But it could still help southern Wimmera and Western District wheat crops.
Mr Nalder got only a brief shower on Sunday, but he got more rain than some other Victorian farmers did.
The Bureau of Meteorology has three rain gauges in the farming district of Horsham.
In the 24 hours to 9am yesterday, one gauge collected no rain, while the other two each collected 0.2mm.
Closer to Melbourne, Balliang grain grower Eric Sharkey received no rain despite the clouds that swept across the state.
"We haven't had anything at all. It hasn't even looked like it," Mr Sharkey said.
It has been a similar story throughout spring.
His wheat crop received a combined 25mm for September and October, he said — "never any more than about five or six millimetres at any one time.
"And that's the critical thing — we're just not getting a decent shower … they're supposed to be two of our wetter months."
While Victorian grain growers again missed out on much-needed rain, their farming counterparts in northern NSW received heavy falls. Moree, a large-scale cropping region, received 63mm in the 24 hours to 9am yesterday.
The biggest fall in Victoria was 43mm in the eastern Strzelecki Ranges.
The biggest total in Melbourne (17mm) was recorded in Mitcham, while Viewbank (16mm) and Warrandyte (13mm) also received good falls.
The CBD received 2.8mm.
Melbourne's major water catchments received an average of about 11mm in the 24 hours to 9am. They received a further 5mm in the seven hours to 4pm.
Melbourne's biggest reservoir, the Thomson Dam, received 19mm in the 31 hours to 4pm yesterday.
Melbourne Water spokesman Andrew McGinnes said the next few days would show how much water had flowed into the storages. "We need solid rain over several days and weeks to saturate the catchments before we can expect to see a meaningful increase in storage levels," Mr McGinnes said.
Melbourne's dams are 33.7pc full, compared to 39.8pc at this time last year.
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