North Coast Local Land Services
Positive production outlooks continue across the region, although many areas in the north impacted by recent weather events.
- Most of the region remains in the NSW CDI Non-Drought category.
- March rainfall was very much above average, with many locations receiving high totals. This will continue the positive production outlook for many parts of the region.
- There have been significant impacts from Ex-tropical Cyclone Alfred across many agricultural industries in the region. This has included damage to macadamia and avocado orchards, impacts to banana plantations resulting in crop losses, and inundation of cropping areas impacting both sugar cane and soybean production.
- Livestock producers in lower lying areas who have experienced inundation of pastures, will experience impacts to feed availability for the reminder of autumn and into winter.
- The drought forecast suggests that the region will likely be in the Non-Drought category by the end of June 2025 (with high model agreement and moderate to high past accuracy).
Click on the scroll bar below the map to compare with previous months.
Normalised Difference Vegetation Index
Plant greenness levels remain near average to above average across most of the region for the January to March period.
Note that some of the extremely negative NDVI areas (brown patches) are water bodies.
The NDVI anomaly is a useful measure of vegetation density and plant health. It estimates the amount of green vegetation there is in the landscape compared to what is expected at the given time of year, against the baseline period 1987 - 2020.
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Individual Drought Indicators
The drought indicators continue to remain moderate to high across all locations.
- Positive production outlooks for producers remain across the region.
To access a Drought History chart for your Parish, visit the Seasonal Conditions Information Portal.
Hover over the chart to see the percentage area in each category.