Unseasonal rain creates havoc in Western Australia’s winter meals bowl

Crimson cherry tomatoes dangle from Su Tran’s worthy crop in Carnarvon, but a more in-depth inspection finds the devastating aspect.

Unseasonal rain has prompted heaps of Mr Tran’s ripe fruits to slice up, and in verbalize of being picked and packed for Perth and beyond they’re going to be going within the bin.

Carnarvon grower Jamie Moore’s property is a muddy look, with flooding between every of his capsicum rows.

Mr Moore acknowledged he and his workers bear had to down tools till the bottom dries again, which could per chance be over a week away.

It is a precarious time for Mr Moore as ripening capsicum could be inclined to splitting and ailments attributable to unseasonal rain events.

Befriend in March, rockmelon grower Joe Poentes and his family hurriedly tranquil ripe fruit sooner than they were also hit with unseasonal rain.

“It could per chance cause rockmelons heaps of bother as they rot after the rain,” he acknowledged.

Extra heavy, unseasonal rain

This week a low strain device off the WA flee brought over 60 millimetres of rain to Carnarvon in a single day, extra than its total monthly rainfall average.

It follows the wettest autumn in 22 years for the Gascoyne, the build 218mm used to be recorded at Carnarvon Airport.

That’s over three instances the average rainfall for the season.

Melons were the most up to the moment fruits to be plagued by the unseasonal rain with rotting rockmelons, honey dew, and watermelons lining paddocks of the verbalize’s winter meals bowl.

The Bureau of Meteorology forecasts extra rain on the manner, with but some other 60mm expected to drop in coming days.

“The actual line is ethical to the north of Carnarvon, so there could per chance effectively be extra falls through that north-western Gascoyne … so you couldn’t rule out up to 60-70mm again,” acknowledged the BOM’s Luke Huntington.

“There would possibly be [also] a threat of those thunderstorms reaching extreme criteria.”