But Western Australia’s cropping belt could be facing markedly drier conditions, despite this autumn’s promising start to the cropping season.

BOM meteorologist Lyn Bettio says there was a slight swing towards a wetter season since last month’s update, but that the outlook remains still firmly in neutral territory.

“We don’t like to read too much into these small swings as it still very hard to tell,” she says.

• Over much of Queensland and north-eastern parts of NSW, the chances of exceeding the median rainfall over winter are between 60-70pc.

The news will be welcome for winter croppers in northern NSW and southern Queensland, who have good subsoil moisture due to heavy summer rain, but are still waiting for planting rains.

• For south-east Australia, there has been a mild swing towards a wetter winter - with the bureau increasing the changes of above average rainfall by 5pc on its April figures.

However, the outlook remains neutral at 50-55pc for a wetter than average winter for virtually all of Victoria and southern NSW.

• In the west, farmers will be glad of their good start through April and May, as Ms Bettio suggests there is only a 30-40pc chance of above average rainfall over the cropping belt.

Ms Bettio said the models are reasonably accurate as a predictive tool over much of south-eastern Australia, but are not so effective in WA, particularly in the south-west of the state.

In contrast, the signals are especially strong in north-east Australia.

The major factors in the Bureau coming to its forecast are the declining La Nina event in the Pacific Ocean and warming of the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia.

“The Pacific Ocean is largely back to neutral conditions - with the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) at zero for the past 30 days,” she says.

“However, there is no immediate threat of a return to an El Nino pattern - associated with dry conditions across eastern Australia.”