UPPER Murray dairy farmer Stephen Whitsed would like nothing more than some sunny weather.
His farm abuts the Indi River, near the Snowy Mountains, and has received 950mm of rain this year.
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One hundred millimetres of that fell over the weekend.
"We don't need any more rain for another three weeks to dry things out," Stephen said.
A gauging station owned by NSW Water on his Biggara farm recorded a flood level of 3.4m for the Indi on Sunday.
Stephen's father, John, has lived on the property since 1949.
"According to records, our biggest flood was in 1996 but this one has eclipsed it by 40cm," John said. "We became pretty alarmed on Saturday when the river rose a metre in three hours."
Fed by a record snowpack above Khancoban, the river's daily flow rate peaked at 23,000 megalitres.
Pasture and fencing has been damaged, and Stephen expects milk production to fall among the 135-cow herd.
He said the floods, combined with the December bushfires, were a double whammy for the region's farmers.
Nearby on the Murray River, Don Jarvis was forced to swim his milking herd through deep floodwater to his Towong dairy.
Ninety per cent of his farm's river flats went under, sweeping away kilometres of fencing.
Don's herd of 175 cows missed two milkings, young stock are stranded and some calves have died.
"I'm 62 and have lived here all my life but have never seen flood levels like this," Mr Jarvis said.









