After a series of wet seasons with parts of NSW enduring devastating flooding, the turnaround to dry conditions has been almost instant in some areas. 

Rainfall in parts of the Upper Hunter this year has been lower than that of the peak of the last drought in 2018. 

"The tap literally got turned off," Merriwa farmer Kim Fenley said. 

Nearby Scone received a total of 341 millimetres of rain in 2018, their lowest on record. 

The area has had 246mm of rain since November last year, with just 1.4mm recorded in May. 

When dry conditions began to creep in during the last drought, farmers across Australia shared their experiences on the Facebook page One Day Closer To Rain (Drought).

Years later, the founder of the Facebook page Cassandra McLaren returned to the page with an eerily familiar post, as a truckload of weaners left her Merriwa property.

"It's definitely déjà vu," Ms McLaren said. 

"We have to keep telling ourselves that it is a very different scenario."

Further west, farmers are dealing with the blow of the first decent rain forecast not coming to fruition, after hundreds of thousands of dollars was spent on sowing crops.

"It had been quiet until last week, but when this forecast started firming up there were some tractors putting in an extra couple of paddocks," Coonamble farmer James Nalder said. 

"We weren't expecting the top rate, but even a certain number of mils there that we thought would have come through would benefit any crops that have already been sown," he said.

Destocking has already begun in his area.

"That's been going on for a number of months already … you just sort of get a bit of a feel that it's drying up," Mr Nalder said. 

"There's still a few that are looking out for opportunities to try and find cheaper stock and maybe feed them through, but there's definitely been more stock sold off than brought in at the moment."

The cost of inputs has made sowing a crop significantly more expensive, and farmers are having to become increasingly risk averse and wary of promising forecasts.

But other rural areas of NSW are faring better.

Conditions in the Riverina are well set up for winter and the Far West has just found relief in its first significant rain of the year. 

Farmers in dry regions hope that they'll see the same reprieve before it reaches drought.

Coonamble received 5mm on Thursday and there was 2.6mm in Scone, but several farmers the ABC spoke to said more was needed.

"You've just got to try and take every bit of information you've got and try to make the best decisions you can," Mr Nalder said.