{"id":61948,"date":"2024-06-08T14:47:28","date_gmt":"2024-06-08T04:47:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=61948"},"modified":"2024-06-08T14:47:52","modified_gmt":"2024-06-08T04:47:52","slug":"victorias-autumn-was-warmer-and-drier-than-usual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=61948","title":{"rendered":"Victoria’s autumn was warmer and drier than usual"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It’s the season of change. Leaves turn gold offering stunning displays of colour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The days get shorter and it gets cooler. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But autumn is often considered to be best season of the year for people visiting Victoria, with plenty of blue sky days and mild weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it’s sowing season for major winter crops like barley, canola and wheat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The season started out dry and warmer than normal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bureau of Meteorology reported that “a heatwave affected most of south-eastern Australia in the first half of March, with both daytime and night-time temperatures more than 10C above the March average.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a glimmer of hope for parched areas over summer with rain in early April, then ended up mostly dry again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victoria’s rainfall was the ninth lowest on record across Autumn and the lowest since 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A warm and dry March<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The season began with below average rainfall across nearly all of the state. Parts of the south-west had below average, or lowest on record rainfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Averaged across the state, it was the seventh driest March on record, and the driest since 1986.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bendigo, along with Edenhope, Longerenong and Kanagulk in the Wimmera recorded no rain at all. And Maryborough in the north central district had just 0.2 mm. Ballarat had less than a millimetre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melbourne scored just 8 per cent of its usual March rain due to only light rainfall over a total of six days. All up it came to 2.8mm.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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The amount of rain Melbourne had in March was a fraction of the average.(ABC News: Patrick Rocca)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

March turned out to be Victoria’s fourth warmest on record and the warmest since 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daytime highs averaged 2.68C above normal. Castlemaine’s 38.5C, along with Kanagulk in western Victoria’s 40.6C, were their hottest March days on record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And at night, Melbourne Airport had its warmest March night on record, not falling below 26.2C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

April showers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Moving to April, and there was joy in the farming community that the tide had turned, as a cold front and low swept across the state at the beginning of the month, bringing widespread rainfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Could this be the “autumn break” they were waiting for?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Central Victoria garnered the lion’s share of the rain. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Central Victoria had lots of rain in April.(ABC: Clarissa Thorpe)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Castlemaine, Kinglake, Kyneton, Mornington and Wonthaggi among others had their wettest April days on record for the second of the month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the liquid gold didn’t last. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the end of April there were below average rain totals in the far west, North East and East Gippsland districts. Mildura only notched up 1.8 millimetres in the rain gauge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melbourne had 124mm of rain. That’s 174 per cent of the long term mean for April.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Melbourne had heavy rain in April but most of it fell over two days.(ABC News: Margaret Burin)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

But it mostly came in two lumps \u2014 53mm on the second and 36mm on the ninth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The parks and gardens in Melbourne’s east were looking especially lush. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scoresby had nearly two-and-a-half times its average April rain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A number of cold fronts rolled through, bringing chilly air from the south. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the maximum temperature averaged across the state was a little below the long-term average, but more so in western and southern areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below average rainfall for May<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

May was marked by long spells of settled weather. And it was good news for those expecting to spend each day sweeping up autumn leaves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Melbourne, they clung on to the trees as wind speeds were well below normal, apart from a few breezy days near the end of the month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a wet April for much of the state, the tables were turned in May.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Melbourne had below average rainfall in May.(Pixabay: Jenny Nguyen)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Although Seymour in the North Central district had its highest rain total on record for May, and several places, including Lancefield and Mansfield had record one-day May rainfall after a deluge on the 31st, it was overall another month of below normal rain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melbourne’s water storages have held up well despite below average rain across the catchments in May. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melbourne Water tells us that at the end of May they were 87.3 per cent full. At the same time last year they were at 89.8 per cent of capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daytime temperatures were slightly above average as clear skies on a number of days helped with warmth. They were well above average in the state’s north-east.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s the season of change. Leaves turn gold offering stunning displays of colour. The days get shorter and it gets cooler.  But autumn is often […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":61950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,35,607],"tags":[993,8],"class_list":["post-61948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-breaking-news","category-weather","tag-melbourne","tag-victoria"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61948"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61955,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61948\/revisions\/61955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/61950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}