SOUTH-WEST farmers are settling in for a cold and wet winter with large downpours falling around the region.
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Winslow dairy farmer Bernie Free said his farm had 14mm on Sunday night.
"It's getting to be a bit of a concern to get so much so early," he said.
"The theory is you get to mid-July before it gets really wet and you should be right, whereas we're starting to get wet now.
"I know people in Cobden are starting to talk about organising helicopters to get urea out.
"If they're starting now it's a long time till spring."
Mr Free has 600 dairy cows and has been farming for 30 years.
"Going into winter we haven't had a dry summer," he said.
"We were told with El Nino it would be a dry winter, now it just wants to keep raining."
Dixie dairy farmer Val Crawford said paddocks hadn't had a chance to dry out with the constant wet weather.
"For me it's going to be a very wet winter," she said.
"We had 13mm on Sunday night. We had 4mm over the weekend.
"We're thinking it's going to be very wet but the forecasters are telling us it's going to be a dry one - so we're looking forward to that."
Stock agent Jack Kelly echoed the region's farmers and said without the benefit of a hot summer a lot of pastures hadn't had a chance to dry out.
"We never had any hot weather so it is damp enough out there," he said.
"Ever since they mentioned those words El Nino, it hasn't stopped raining.
"Everything is wet and quite damp out there at the moment.
"We're just hoping we can scoot through and get to the end of July and August and hopefully things start to be a bit better.
"We've certainly had plenty of rain all the way through."
Mr Kelly said the constant wet weather could make it difficult for livestock to put on weight which could impact prices.
"We're just hoping we can skip through, but don't worry it is damp enough out there," he said.
"We're looking for sunshine."
Monday was expected to be the coldest day of the year so far for Warrnambool with the temperature forecast to reach 11 degrees with rain and hail throughout the day.
By noon on Monday Warrnambool had received about 14mm of rain overnight, Port Fairy had received 26mm, Mortlake had received 18mm and 13mm in Hamilton.
The Bureau of Meteorology are expecting more showers on Tuesday and Wednesday in Warrnambool with up to 9mm predicted on Thursday and more showers on Friday and Saturday.
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