It has been exceedingly very dry in our regions since Friday, January 26, so many places went through the whole of February without any rain and the first 10 days of March have been the same.
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Very hot days arrived during the second week of March, Melbourne recorded 37.6 degrees on Saturday, March 9. This was only the eighth time since 1855 that there was a higher temperature in March than was recorded during the previous summer. The other seven cases were in 1892, 1892, 1934, 1940, 1953, 1974 and 1978. Except for 1940 there was definitely no shortage of rainfall from late April for most months up to December in our regions including the Warrego and Maranoa region in Queensland.
Adelaide after the wettest November to January period on record has had no rain since January 28. The 47 days to date without any rain across February is the longest since 48 days in 1954. The longest such spell without any rain in Adelaide was 77 days in 1893 and 66 days in 1870. All three - 1870, 1893 and 1954 - saw a notably dry and warmer March in South Australia, Victoria and NSW and this continued right up to the third week of April.
Melbourne on Saturday night recorded its hottest March night on record, with 27.1 degrees. The previous warmest March night was 26.5 degrees on March 13, 2013. The outer suburb of Scoresby also recorded its hottest March night with 26.5 degrees on record; its previous hottest March night was also in 2013.
The current hot spell saw the highest temperatures in south western Victoria where Warrnambool recorded 40.7 on the Saturday and 40.5 degrees on the Sunday. This is the hottest pair of March days at Warrnambool on record.
High rainfall elsewhere
Maximum temperatures to date have not been exceptionally high further north into South Australia and from northern Victoria to well into NSW.
Places like Alice Springs right up to Daly Waters have already received above average rainfalls for March. Both Elliott and Daly Waters have received 153 millimetres and 184 millimetres for the first 10 days of March, which is well above average for the month. On top of very high rainfalls at both places in January and February, the records do show that January to March 1974 was also very wet at both places. I recall we had very heavy rain late in April and May 1974.
In addition, very heavy rain has fallen at Eyre located to the far east of Western Australia since last weekend. Over a four-day period 325 millimetres was recorded, the wettest ever such period in 140 years of records. This was higher than the annual average of 316 millimetres. In March 1912, 203.8 millimetres was recorded, the only previous wet month. March 1912 was a warm dry month in South Australia, Victoria and up to Queensland and much needed rain fell in both June and July 1912. Just to the north of Eyre at Rawlinna there is a merino sheep station, the largest in Australia, being a million hectares holding 60,000 sheep and most of this property went under water. A strong high pressure ridge prevented the eastward movement of this massive deluge from Eyre.
