Simpson et al. [1993] determined that there is a high correlation between ENSO events and significant decreases in the annual precipitation over eastern Australia. Using this information and the forecasts from the Zebiak and Cane [1987] atmosphere/ocean coupled model, Simpson et al. [1993] provided a nine-month forecast for the Murray river runoff. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has been using the forecasts from the numerical models to issue useful ``outlooks'' for the seasonal precipitation anomalies. The success of these forecasts has led the Queensland State Government to sponsor the formal infrastructure to disseminate this information to farmers.