But hopes are high for a wet Spring, with farmers looking for salvation in a La Nina wet season to end 2020.

Tamworth weather observer David Farrenden, who owns the Tamworth and Region weather page, believes we will know as soon as next month if the end of the year will bring an end to water restrictions in Tamworth.

"We're looking at going into a wet, we're looking at going into La Nina from Spring," he said.

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But at the moment most of the North West and Northern Tablelands remains in drought, according to the latest State Seasonal Update by the Department of Primary Industries (DPI), released this week.

The Tamworth region is now considered "drought affected", the least severe drought category. Scattered areas west of the city are "recovering" or in "non drought".

According to the DPI update, conditions are improving in southern parts of the region after rainfall during July.

But in a majority of the area conditions have remained unchanged since the end of June, with more rain needed until an end to the region's worst-ever drought.

Scattered parts of our LLS region remain in intense drought, including areas around the northern New England town of Tenterfield.

Mr Farrenden said hopes will be pegged to a wet Spring driven by La Nina conditions.

Of eight Bureau of Meteorology models, three are currently predicting La Nina conditions will start in September.

Most Bureau models are predicting wetter-than-average conditions will begin by October, he said.

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He said the rain could start to break the drought and fill dams by the end of the year.

"Having this sort of moisture in Spring is good because this is when we start seeing our Spring storms. This is where you get some really good dumps," he said.

"Because the catchment area up around Chaffey and Keepit are all pretty well drenched at the moment, it won't take much to start filling those dams up."

At the height of last year's historically low rainfall year, 100 per cent of our region was classed as in "intense drought", the worst category. As late as April 2020 over 10 per cent of the region was classed as "drought".

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