111.8 mm rain total.
December 5.8mm falling on two days.
January 23mm over six days.
February 83mm over four days (78mm falling in one night).
Wind: only a couple days in January where wind gusts pushed into 70kmh.
Minimum temperature: 6.9C
Maximum temperatures: 46.1C
December: twenty days over 30C, ten of which over 40C (two spells, five and four days).
January: twelve days over 30C, four of which over 40C.
February: eleven days over 30C, none over 40C.
Relative Humditity:
December average 41.3 (min 5.5, 11 below 10%)
January average 50 (min 4.5, five below 10%)
February average 62 (none below 10%)
Farmonline rain data is collected within 100m of our home, so will continue to use it.
After a hot dry spring, summer began the same way. The intense heat waves (multiple days over 40) combined with wind and dry spells. This weather created serious fire conditions. We did not suffer locally from this, but the rest of the continent did. This type of weather only broke properly on the first day of February, with the heaviest rain in a few hour period for home that's been recorded. The towns in immediate vicinity had similar experience, but rest of state was less than half the rain we got that day (still very helpful to them). The milder weather we've had since has been wonderful.
The heat events arose due a long patch of time where air over centre of continent didn't get shifted and just kept heating up. This was apparently a result of Indian Ocean Dipole and Southern Ocean Ocellation events. Long term climate changes made the result hotter and drier but didn't drive it per se (or so I'm told). The heavy rain even came about when the monsoon turned 'on', sweeping the rain we got from North Queensland through the centre and to here (not seen this before). That combined with Indian Ocean Dipole 'flipping' and the Southern Oscillation returning to 'normal', all in the space of about two or three days. Was quite weird how it happened. I watched it all on weather radars over that period. New something was going to happen, didn't think it would a river forming across our street! We weren't flooded, but was a close thing for a few of our neighbors.
