Soil Moisture Snap Shot 29 June 2026

Dale Grey, Agriculture Victoria, Bendigo

The BoM Australian Water Outlook (AWO) modelled soil moisture decile for perennial pastures predicts wetter than average values across the Eyre Peninsula. Most of the regions are ranked much wetter at decile 10, where the tip and east coast are ranked above average at decile 8 to 9.

The BoM AWO modelled plant available soil moisture percentage is the background image in the following two maps. This predicts that most perennial pasture, or weedy fallows would be 25-50% full. The western regions are predicted to be wetter at 50-60% full. The southern tip has values ranging from 50-80%. The soil moisture probe network of cropped paddocks (values taken from 26 June), presumably with weeds controlled in autumn, shows most values are higher than predicted. Many are excitingly over 75% full, 12 sites are close to 100% full. Given the high June rainfall (much of it twice average) this is unsurprising.

Net soil moisture for the last 30 days is mixed. Three locations decreased, presumable with vigorous crop water use, and perhaps some drainage as well. A number of locations increased by 10-20% and some by over 20% percentage points. Increases ranged from 2-77% but the median was 14 percentage points. Pinkawillinnie decreased 27 percentage points from 68 to 41% and the other two decreasing sites fell by 12%.  East and west of Lock, two sites increased over 60 percentage points and Ungarra increased by 37-41%