With an El Nino out in force, and Maitland in the grips of a drought, gumboots and a brolly are the last accessory residents would think to grab heading into summer. Yet Mother Nature is bringing more wet conditions as the city counts down to December 1, so don't pack that rain jacket away just yet. The weather on Wednesday is expected to be rather wet, with a chance of storms. It follows a rainy Tuesday that saw showers and storms across the Lower Hunter. The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting between 10 and 40 millimetres of rain in Maitland on Wednesday, with temperatures between 17 and 29. There's a 20 per cent chance of rain on Thursday and Friday. The rain will hang around this weekend with 10 mm predicted on Saturday and up to 4 on Sunday. It will be 28 degrees on Saturday and Sunday. Temperatures will be slightly cooler on Monday, with 27 degrees predicted. Oakhampton farmer Austin Breiner has been missing out on a decent deluge, with just 16 millimetres of rain falling on his farm over about a week earlier this month. In the same period his farming friends at East Maitland received a whopping 86 millimetres. The lack of rain has delayed his spring planting schedule.
