Farmer Greg is ecstatic about the amount of rain that has been dumped in our region over the past 48 hours.

Greg and his farm made the news when the Wingham Chronicle reported on March 14 on how the drought was affecting local farmers, illustrated by a picture of Greg standing in the middle of an empty and cracked dam on his property.

At that time, Greg told the Wingham Chronicle that even if the region were to receive rain straight away he would be struggling to provide winter pasture for his livestock, as he practices zero-till farming (not disturbing the soil with tillage).

However after this week’s weather event, Greg is hopeful that, with the expected return of hot weather again next week, it will give the kikuyu and other grasses the kick it needs to establish strong winter pasture.

Wingham locals are reporting having received135mm of rain in their gauges to Thursday morning. The Bureau of Meteorology reports that Taree received 149mm, while people in Killabakh have recorded 250mm.

MidCoast Council says the rain will sustain river flows and water supplies for the coming months.

“Bootawa Dam, which supplies water to 36,000 customers from Crowdy Head in the north to Tarbuck Bay in the south, is at 100 per cent capacity,” Brendan Guiney, director of water services, MidCoast Council said.

Water supplies in Stroud, Bulahdelah and Gloucester are now in a similar good position for the coming months.

“We’re still, as we speak, on a flood watch for minor flooding of the Manning River. There is an awful lot of rain that came down in the upper part of the catchment that is still yet to work its way down,” SES Mid North Coast community engagement co-ordinator, Steve Lawrence said.

“We still also have the issue of perhaps heavy rain affecting the Manning today and going forward.”

The SES have been kept busy this week with 93 requests for assistance in the Manning and Great Lakes areas. Most of those calls came on Wednesday night.

“The Tuncurry-Forster area was the hardest hit with 44 requests for assistance. We still have about 16 outstanding jobs in that area. We’ve got three crews out there this morning mopping up,” Mr Lawrence said.

“We had 20 requests for assistance in Taree and they were for leaking roofs, leaking skylights, and requests for sandbags. We haven’t had any request for assistance in the Wingham area so that’s good.”

Mr Lawrence says the community has been co-operative in not driving through flood waters.

“There’s been an awful lot of water around the roads and we haven’t had the need to conduct a flood rescue so that’s a real positive that we’re trying to acknowledge, after what happened at Bobin the other week,” he said.

“The SES volunteers have done a fantastic job, particularly last night in those conditions getting out there and making watertight those roofs that were leaking and making safe any houses that were affected by fallen trees and debris.

“We’ve also had some really excellent co-operation from our other emergency services partners - council, Fire and Rescue, Rural Fire Services, the police, the Volunteer Rescue Association - they’ve all played a part in helping us out which has been fantastic,” Mr Lawrence said.