The flood, which devastated a large swathe of northern Victoria as waterways burst over their banks, was just one of four floods to hit Mr Vanston's farm in 2010 and 2011.

Just a few short years later the lamb producer and grain grower is wondering where the rainfall has gone.

Since the beginning of September last year his property, about 45 kilometres north west of Bendigo, has received only about 33 millimetres of rainfall. The long-term annual average rainfall for the farm is about 425 millimetres.

"It reminds me a bit of '82, when we had what I class as the last big drought," he says of the current conditions.

In recent months he has only received passing showers, rather than decent rain, which have provided no benefit to the parched paddocks and empty dams.

While many Melburnians have rugged up this week and heard heavy rain or hail hit the roof above, Mr Vanston's farm has received nothing of the sort.

"We've had approximately three mills (millimetres) and that's been in half-mill and one mill (millimetre) lots. And basically every time you get that amount in showers, all you need is about half-an-hour of wind and it's gone. The effect is gone," he says.

"At the moment it is that dry that the crop I've put in four weeks ago hasn't grown. Because there's no moisture in the ground to germinate the crop. There's no moisture around to continue any feed growth, so there's no growth in any grass - if it has germinated in some way it's not growing. And all we need is one frost and we won't have anything other than just dirt," he says.

"Even if we get say 10 millimetres now, the ground is that hard the water stays on top, rather than going in...So we need a long steady rainfall so that the water can run into the sub-soil," he says. ''For us to get any value at the moment we need something like a 25 millimetre rainfall within half a day.''

The severe lack of rain is bad both for business and for morale. Mr Vanston estimates that the severe dry of the past eight-and-a-half months has cost him about $50,000 in lost earnings. It's a figure that will climb higher over coming months if the dry continues.

"I've been through a number of droughts but after a while it wears a bit thin. It's the ability to bounce back. We had four floods in 2010 and 2011...I don't need a drought just to help me out," he says. 

- The Age