As coastal towns expect a battering from cyclone, outback graziers hope the rain finds them

While Queensland’s coastal regions batten down ahead of anticipated wild weather from Cyclone Kirrily, inland graziers hope the rain will head west.

The cyclone has been declared, but some uncertainty remains about where it will track once it makes landfall.

Current modelling suggests Kirrily will hit land near Townsville on Thursday night, and track inland towards Charters Towers and Hughenden, delivering much-needed downpours across north-west Queensland.

As cattle values increase, there is also hope a proper soaking could set farmers up for a year after a sustained period of low commodity prices.

It has been a disappointing wet season so far for Charters Towers grazier Ben Bennetto, who said conditions started strong but had dried off in recent weeks.

“In our little pocket here, it’s very dry at the moment,” Mr Bennetto said.

“It kicked off really well and it was looking good early on … but it just hasn’t continued in this area.”

He would welcome a reprieve from the dry conditions.

“We could definitely do with a good drop this week. A couple inches would be fantastic … but we will take what we can get,” he said.

Fears of 2019 repeat

Grazier Nigel Simmons from Clarafield Station, south-east of Julia Creek, said 100 millimetres of rain over a few days would set him up for the year.

“We are fully stocked so we are chasing rain to get the grass in front of the cattle,” he said.

“We have some green pick [new grass growth] from the recent rain so that’s a huge bonus — cattle are getting a bit of energy from that but if we get this rain that grass will continue to grow.”

However, Mr Simmons said there was a fine line between good rain and too much, having lived through the 2019 floods.

He lost cattle in 2019 as a result of flooding from a slow-moving low that came from Townsville.

“We hadn’t had any rain before that, so it came in and ruined the dry feed we had,” he said.

“For two weeks nothing grew because it was overcast and rained every day, and the cattle didn’t have anything to eat so they were bogging in the paddocks.”

‘Not much you can do’

Back towards the coast, along the banks of the Burdekin River, Don Heatley’s Home Hill property is right in the firing line of the weather system’s trajectory.

It is believed the system could drop a metre of rain on already sodden parts of the north as it makes its way inland.

In preparation, Mr Heatley has been moving cattle to higher country, heavy machinery and other equipment into his hay shed, and pulling irrigation equipment from the river.

Despite his preparation efforts, he said he was not concerned about his potential proximity to the cyclone.

“At the end of the day you don’t get too panicky about it,” Mr Heatley said.

“The river is the river, there’s not much you can do to stop it so you just live with it.

“It’s just a matter of dealing with whatever happens.”

Rain a reprieve from heat

While it is a waiting game for those further west, communities hoping for the rain are also looking for some reprieve from the heat.

This week, much of the state has sweltered through heatwave conditions, with places like Birdsville in the far south west recording minimum temperatures of 35 and maximums in the mid to high 40s.

On Thursday it is believed the small outback town could reach 49.2 degrees.

Mr Bennetto said the heat, along with the lack of rain, had dried out paddocks across western and north-west Queensland.

“It’s been getting onto a month since we’ve had rain,” he said.

“Couple that with plenty of 40-degree days … and it’s led to the soil and the grass really drying out.”