THE drought's not over.
That's the verdict of the Bureau of Meteorology, which says Victoria is still suffering a "green" drought despite good recent rain.
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Head of climate monitoring and prediction at the bureau's National Climate Centre, Dr David Jones, said while much of the state looks as though it's out of drought, there were still big problems below ground level.
Above-average rain during the past 10 months had largely removed the impact of poor rainfall in recent years, but there were still large areas where there had been nowhere near enough rain to remove longer-term dryness, Dr Jones said.
"Near-surface moisture is tracking close to average across much of the state, so it's not looking much like a drought," he said.
"But once you go down deeper into the soil, things are much drier. Ten months of good rain is not nearly enough to wet it up again.
"There's been enough rain to get the grass to grow, but the dams, trees and streams are still feeling the pinch.
"It's a classic green drought."
According to the bureau, Victoria had above-average rainfall of about 582mm between July last year and the end of last month, and has just experienced its wettest start to the year since the mid-1970s.
The last time Victoria had such a wet 10-month period was in 1993-94, Dr Jones said. "So we've been 16 years without above-average rainfall, that's how dry it's been. The long-run drought is still with us."
Dr Jones' comments contradict some assessments that the drought is officially over.
Debate on the issue is complicated by the fact that there is no accepted way of determining at what point a drought has ended.
Exceptional Circumstances data, another indicator of drought, show that more than half of Victoria, mainly across the state's central, north, northeast and northwest regions, is still drought-declared.
But Dr Jones said the chances of more good rain were improving.
"El Nino is over, and we've moved very quickly to neutral conditions," he said.
"There's an escalating chance of a La Nina developing by late winter or early spring. More than half the climate models we look at are now suggesting this."
An El Nino usually brings drier-than-normal conditions, a La Nina above-average rainfall.
