Winter arrived hard and fast this year across southern Queensland, with frequent frosts slowing the progress of oats crops and leaving many producers without any green pick heading into the colder months.
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The South Burnett, western, southern and Darling Downs, and Maranoa regions copped the brunt of the cold snap, with several towns across the areas experiencing record frosts and minimum temperatures.
Retired CSIRO meteorologist Peter Nelson said May was noteworthy due to the high frequency of days of frosts in the regions.
Mr Nelson noted that Mitchell in the south west experienced a record 16 days of frosts during May, while the mean minimum temperature of 3.3 degrees was the coldest since 2.7 degrees in 1935.
There were 11 days of frosts in Roma during the month, the most since 16 days in 1994, a year when the region saw severe drought.
Dalby recorded 15 days of frosts, which Mr Nelson said was easily a record number going right back to 1880, also suffering the coldest ever mean minimum temperature for May, being 3.9 degrees.
Records were also broken across the Southern Downs, with Warwick experiencing 16 days of frosts and a mean minimum temperature of 3.5 degrees, surpassing May records set in 1944.
Cattle producers Margie and Scott Madigan, Nanango, often see frosts at their home property, Broadmere, which is situated on the banks of Barkers Creek, but those in the past month had been particularly harsh.
"The frost on the 30th was as bad as we'd ever seen it, it was raw and horrendous, particularly up on the hills," Ms Madigan said.
"The Barkers Creek flats were as white as you would ever see them. It could well be our coldest and rawest morning for maybe all of 2023 I think.
"Everywhere it's been pretty severe. In the South Burnett, it's been very cold since the first week of May, and we've had frosts on and off for the last month.
"Any green pick or bulk feed, it's been wiped out, it's all gone now."
After recording below average rainfall every month since October last year, Ms Madigan said things were looking dry heading into winter and their oats crop was taking much longer to grow out than previous years.
"We've have 110 acres of oats planted since before Easter, but there's still no cattle on them. It's desperate for a drink, so it's out of the ground, but very patchy," she said.
"We normally have cattle on oats by the end of May or early June, but we won't have them on there for at least a few weeks yet, so we're really hoping to get some decent rain this coming week.
"With the dry conditions we've had this year, any green pick that we were lucky to keep during inconsistent rain, it's now completely vanished after the frosts.
"We've got lick out to all the cattle now and are solidly feeding. We're hoping to maintain their health because at the moment, they are looking really good."
Dalby based agronomist Angus Dalgliesh said, despite the cool weather hitting harder and earlier than usual, oats and fodder crops around the Darling Downs were looking quite healthy.
He said some decent rainfall in the past fortnight had helped to keep things going with the crops generally, in the area.
"We were saying the other day that we've probably seen more frosts in the last two weeks than we have over the last two years," he said.
"Those frosts earlier in the month may have caused a bit of damage for some people, but then we had some decent rain about a fortnight ago and things have bounced back.
"That cooler weather early on actually hardened things up in a lot of cases.
"Overall, the cold snap hasn't really affected anything too much, all thing's considered, everything is looking quite good in terms of fodder crops in our area."
Like many in the Burnett and Downs areas, Mr Dalgliesh said grazing country was really starting to hay off, and heading into winter, it was concerning how dry it could get in the coming weeks and months.
"Our lick sales have actually gone through the roof lately, which is usually a pretty good indicator that it's getting dry," he said.
"They're not talking big rain anymore in this next lot, around Dalby, Brigalow or even into that Kingaroy area, but hopefully we get something and there's some more to come after that."
