FOR many city people, it must seem the drought is now over.
Victoria has just notched up its wettest 10 months since the early 1990s, and its wettest start to the year since the mid 1970s.
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The countryside looks green in many places.
Sheep flocks and cattle herds seem plentiful again and crop forecasts are on the up.
As the city media mistakenly reports an end to the drought, calls for cuts to drought aid will surely follow.
But the reality beyond the cities is quite different.
As the Bureau of Meteorology says, what we're seeing is really a "green'' drought.
Sure, the grass looks green and lush, but it's what's happening below the surface that's critical for farmers. While recent rain has freshened up the topsoil, the long drought has left the sub-soil appallingly dry.
The bureau says the grass might look green, but the trees, dams and rivers remain starved of water.
And the drought certainly isn't over for crop farmers until the harvest is in the silo.
One good harvest is not going to retrieve preceding 10 bad seasons.
The great start to the year is fantastic and no farmer is ungrateful for it. The rain has provided a huge emotional lift.
It's taken a weight off the shoulders of many and signalled potentially better times ahead.
But a wet autumn doesn't automatically mean money in the bank.
Spare a thought, too, for scores of farmers in the Mallee and other parts of northern Victoria and southern NSW.
They had the best start to a season in years - then watched locusts devour thousands of hectares of pasture crops.
There are also farmers in NSW yet to receive an autumn break who are watching grass from summer rain quickly dry off.
Many are now dry sowing in the hope of a break soon.
Where the break has come, farmers hope the good news is just the start.
But they're a long way from calling it the end of the drought.
Hopefully they might change their minds after several more months tipping water out of rain gauges that have been empty for so long.
