Big dry: Storms skirt Neil and Anne Kennedy's Coonamble property. Photo: Dean Sewell

Complaining about the rain so far this month?

Spare a thought for Anne and Neil Kennedy, who watched belts of thunderstorms pass by their property of Yuma, near Coonamble in the state's north.

"They were very disappointing," said Ms Kennedy. "We only got about 2-3mm. It's been terribly patchy."

Missing out on the main event: Neil and Anne Kennedy's Coonamble property. Photo: Dean Sewell

For the Kennedys, another dry year has meant a failed barley crop. The stunted stalks, though, at least helped fatten cattle with little else growing on their windswept holdings of some 12,000 hectares.

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Farmers in Walgett, about 80 km away "didn't even have a failed crop", and also missed out on the storms. "It is unbelievably bad," Ms Kennedy said.

Underscoring nature's lottery, Gilgandra, about 100km to the south of Yuma collected 145mm in the last week. "They have had an excellent year, with terrific rains," she said.

Ms Kennedy said her farm is now "100 per cent reliant on groundwater" to survive, adding that the drought has made farmers even more worried about coal seam gas drilling into the Great Artesian Basin to the east. "It could affect water pressure and the amount."

Commercial banks, meanwhile, are likely to cut farmers more slack as drought conditions spread from central Queensland through parts of northern NSW and into western Victoria.

The ANZ Bank has pledged to halt evictions of farmers under financial stress in parts of Queensland and northern NSW for 12 months, and won't raise interest rates on "distressed farms". Other banks are expected to follow suit.

Most of the past week's rain in NSW was confined to the state's eastern third

Moruya on the state's far south coast received 388mm at one of its sites, with 256mm falling in just one day, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

The past week also brought a record seven consecutive days of thunderstorms for Sydney, breaking the previous longest stretch of five days set in 1955, 1992 and 2007, the bureau said.

"We had an inland trough that didn't move," said Andrew Haigh, a duty forecaster for the bureau. "We got this continual in-feed of moist air from the north and very humid conditions."

That pattern has now broken up, with the more normal mix of highs and low pressure systems moving across the continent, he said.

For Sydney that means a mix of mostly dry days for the coming week with the possibility of another thunderstorm on Tuesday. 

Temperatures will also start to climb with maximums rising into the low to mid-30s in the west but remaining below 30 degrees in the east.

For those planning festival activities, Guy Dixon a Meteorologist at Weatherzone said there was the potential for a thunderstorm late on Christmas Day.

"We should see hot temperatures during the day and into the afternoon, before big puffy clouds start to build," Mr Dixon said. "They look great, but could rain on your parade – or your barbecue."