season Outlook Briefings 2026
Season Outlook Briefings September 2026.
Murray Irrigation will once again be hosting Season Outlook Briefings in Deniliquin, Wakool and Finley.
These events are designed to equip customers with valuable insights and resources from industry experts, enabling you to make well-informed decisions for the season ahead.
These sessions were exceptionally well received by customers last year with 81 attendees across the three meetings. Customer feedback following last years sessions showed a strong interest in making these an annual event, with attendees encouraging more customers to attend.
Similar to last year, we have expert guest speakers attending including:
Marrianne Graham (RuralCo Water) – Water Trade & Brokerage update
Shahadat Chowdhury & Priyantha Jayakody (NSW DCCEEW) – Water Allocation Forecast Outlook 2026/27
Eric Snodgrass (Nutrien Ag Solutions) - Weather forecast focused on the MIL footprint.
Event Details
These events will be held across Wednesday 16 and Thursday 17 September in Wakool, Deniliquin and Finley at the below locations and times.
Date: Wednesday 16 September 2026
Time: 2.00pm – 3.30pm
Location: Wakool & District Services Memorial Sports Club, 39 Flinders St, Wakool NSW 2710
Date: Thursday 17 September 2026
Time: 9.30am – 11.00am
Location: Coach house Deniliquin, 99 End St, Deniliquin NSW 2710
Date: Thursday 17 September 2026
Time: 2.00pm – 3.30pm
Location:
Finley Returned Soldiers Club, 63-67 Tocumwal St, Finley NSW 2713
Speaker profiles
Marianne Graham
Marianne was born in Wagga Wagga. Over her diverse career, Marianne has accumulated a wealth of financial experience as a trader and broker in the volatile electricity markets where her skills in analysis and deep knowledge of supply and demand factors helped her clients make successful decisions. She brings this skill-set with her to the water markets to assist her clients in understanding price drivers, empowering them in their water purchasing or selling strategy.
Eric Snodgrass
Eric Snodgrass is a Sr. Science Fellow for Nutrien Ag Solutions, where he develops predictive, analytical software solutions to manage weather risk for global production agriculture. He provides frequent weather updates that focus on how high-impact weather events influence global agriculture productivity. His current research uses machine learning to better understand field-level weather impacts on yields in the US and to increase confidence in long-range weather prediction. He presents his research as a featured speaker at over 100 conferences annually where he provides logistical guidance and solutions to weather sensitive financial institutions, farmers, commodity traders, and other stakeholders. He was recently awarded the Educator Award in 2023 for Distinguished Service to America’s High Technology Agriculture by the Mid America Croplife Association.
Shahadat Chowdhury
Shahadat Chowdhury is the manager of the team that allocates water in NSW. He has been a senior member of the team for last 8 years. He played a key part in securing water during the tinderbox drought of 2017-2020. Shahadat has been working for the department since 1992, in various roles, assisting water management of NSW. His expertise includes determining water allocation, securing critical water needs, modelling water delivery, simulating irrigation demand, projecting climate change impact and so on. Shahadat is a civil engineer with a Ph D in hydrology from the University of NSW.
Priyantha Jayakody
Priyantha Jayakody is Lead Hydrologist in the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, NSW, with over a decade of experience in the water allocation team. He brings deep expertise in integrating science and policy to support sustainable water management under changing climatic conditions. He holds a PhD in Engineering from Mississippi State University, USA, and has published widely in peer-reviewed journals, contributing to advancements in water resource planning and climate resilience.
More information
For more information on the Season Outlook Briefings, please contact the Customer Experience team on 1300 138 265 or customersupport@murrayirrigation.com.au.
