It came off the back of a dry June in which the town’s weather station recorded 6mm, adding to what has been a relatively dry year in the district to date.

As of the end of July Wellington had recorded 185.2mm to date in 2017, significantly down on 2016's total of 491.7mm for the same period.

In fact, August's rainfall has already exceeded that of the last two months combined, the month’s total as of Monday sitting at 30.9mm.

Local agronomist Michael White said farmers are now banking on more rain to bring on what could still be a quality season.

“There is country that never went in, never got sown because it got too dry,” Mr White said.

“There are very patchy germinations that have occurred with the later crops, but this rain will bring all that forward now.

“But one fall of rain does not break a drought, we need follow-up.”

He said crops rely just as much on timing as they do rainfall.

“We missed out on critical timing with germination, lot of crops are now behind schedule,” he said.

“If we continue to get rain into September and a mild spring we could end up with a wonderful season.”

The record lowest rainfall for July was in 1985 when 1.6mm was recorded, and the highest being 138mm in 1912. 

The BOM predicts a minus three degree start to Wednesday with a top of 18, and the same on Thursday with a high of 21. Friday and Saturday will be partly cloudy with a top of 16 on Saturday and 17 on Sunday.