After a week of steady rain in Lightning Ridge and throughout the shire hopes are high the drought may be drawing to a close.
Lightning Ridge received 102.8 millimetres from Monday January 12 to Sunday January 18, while Collarenebri received 217.3mm.
The greatest downpour on a single day was on Saturday when Lightning Ridge received 57.6mm and Collarenebri received 80.2mm.
As of the beginning of January 86 per cent of the State was still drought declared or marginally in drought.
Mayor Peter Waterford said the recent rain was great news for local farmers.
"It's been fantastic, probably the best drop of rain we've had in four years. And the people I've talked to, some of them had up to six inches, and the majority have had at least four inches.
"It seems to be pretty widespread. Out in Collarenebri they picked up seven or eight inches. It's been very good and heavy rain," he said.
"Most of the people who've got their land ploughed up ready for sowing, it'll be starting to put some moisture into the ground. For the first time people are looking with a bit of anticipation for the following year. So they're looking at a good year this year."
NSW Agriculture's district agronomist Sarah Sykes said the rain was a great start to the year, and would give farmers a chance of a good crop.
"It's going to be great for filling those cropping profiles. We certainly need a lot more rain to be guaranteed we're going to get a crop this year, two or three inches just aren't going to fill a profile because they are very dry.
"This is a good start, but we need four inches plus, because the soil is so dry and the cracks are so big we need a lot of rain to fill them."
She said after this rain farmers with livestock would be looking at restocking.
"I daresay a lot of people have lightened off sheep and cattle numbers, and after this rain they'll be looking to increasing those numbers.
"Livestock prices last year were very good, but I daresay after this rain everyone is going to be wanting to restock so they might have to pay a little more money for their cattle and sheep.
"Now foot and mouth disease has been discovered in the US there might be more demand for Australian beef so those restockers might find it a bit costly."
Ms Sykes said although the rain was a good start to the year, the weather would most likely revert back to the summer conditions experienced between Christmas and New Year.
"They were predicting another El Nino before this, which means we go back into drought, but hopefully we'll be able to get some more monsoon activity up north to bring more relief rain for us."
Cr Waterford said the rain would bring a real boost to the farming industries, but warned if the rain continued it could bring about flood conditions.
"Grass is money and this is the first time we've seen grass round the place for years."
"It could be the start of a flood, because there's been a lot of rain in Queensland, and all the rivers coming down to NSW have flooded, so if we continue to get that sort of rain and it continues to fall up in Queensland it will flood."
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