Coonamble

Coonamble is a town on the central-western plains of New South Wales, Australia.

Coonamble is a town on the central-western plains of New South Wales, Australia. It lies on the Castlereagh Highway north-west of Gilgandra.At the 2016 census, Coonamble had a population of 2,750. It is the regional hub for wheat growing and sheep and wool. The name for the town is taken from the Gamilaraay word guna (faeces) and -bil (having much).Brigidine nuns from Ireland established a school in 1883. Their architecturally distinguished convent was dismantled in 1990 and transported 600 km (373 mi) to Pokolbin, where it now houses The Convent resort.Although Coonamble had been a major sheep industry region in the 1980s to 2000, there has recently been an increasing interest in cattle rearing. The summers can have temperatures reaching up to 40 °C (104 °F) and in winter, there are nights as cold as 0 °C (32 °F). Most recently Coonamble has gained media coverage due to their mass floods over Christmas 2009.

Coonamble has a hot semi-arid climate (BSh) with long hot summers and short cool winters, with mild, albeit erratic, rainfall spread through the months.