Central Tablelands Local Land Services [CTLLS] regional veteranarian Bruce Watt said the conditions were heading toward those of the 1982 drought, considered the worst in recent times.

“1982 was an absolute shocker,” he said.

Mr Watt said Orange farmers had been hit hard as they missed out on most of the rain which fell in the region a week ago.

“It’s both sheep and cattle producers,” he said.

“We’ve got some big sheep producers around Orange and they are feeling some pain.

“I don’t know anywhere around Orange that is particularly good.

“The last good rain we’ve had was in March [2017] and December.

“We are looking at a year when we have had very little rain.

“This had been a particularly dry spell.

“It is becoming really quite serious.”

Mr Watt said a forecast dry and warm autumn would only worsen the situation.

Weather website Accuweather is predicting only nine days of rain for the next three months.

Another website Weatherzone is forecasting only three days of rain in March – and two of them are this weekend.

The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting only a 45 per cent chance of rain in autumn exceeding the median rainfall for the region.

Mr Watt said even with rain it would take time for farms to recover.

“Even for those people who were under the storms, given we’ve just come out of an extremely dry summer, it’s going to take some time and follow up rain before we start seeing a good body of feed in the paddocks,” he said.

“Many farmers will still be providing supplementary feed to stock.”

He said farmers seeking advice should go to the NSW Department of Primary Industries DroughtHub website.

And they should contact the CTLLS livestock health and management advice.