We are facing our warmest Easter for many decades with expected maximum temperatures topping 30 degrees on three successive days.
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The warmest previous Easters were in 1922 and 1955.
The remnants of tropical cyclone Megan have continued to produce heavy rainfalls at many places between Daly Waters and Alice Springs up to Monday, March 25.
It has been particularly very wet from Tennant Creek to Daly Waters. At Anthony Lagoon a record daily fall of 249 millimetres on March 19 was an all-time record for any month in 124 years of records and the March total to date at 369 millimetres is also a new record, surpassing the previous wettest March of 345 millimetres in 1974.
At Elliott 189 millimetres fell to Sunday morning, March 24, which was also a record daily fall for March and the month's total of 516 millimetres made it the wettest March on record. Daly Waters has received 280 millimetres this month to date and Tennant Creek 246 millimetres so far this month.
The first three months of this year have been very wet at all these places.
Elliott's January to March rainfall period to date has reached 1317 millimetres and this has just surpassed the previous wettest January to March period at the Northern Territory town since 1225 millimetres in 1974. The January to March rainfalls at these places was much above average in 1974 and 2011 and to a lesser extent in 1976.
Patterns point to rain heading south
In 1974 the heavy rain arrived in the Maranoa and Warrego district of Queensland in the latter part of April and southwards to Victoria and Tasmania. In 2011 the Maranoa and Warrego district and southwards to central west of NSW experienced downpours during the third week of March and it was not until the second week of April before heavy rain arrived in Victoria. The second half of 1974 and 2011 tended to be a lot wetter than average in both Victoria and NSW and somewhat drier than average in Queensland.
Two years later it tended to be warmer and drier than usual from March onwards to August in most districts and then wetter from September to November 1976 and very wet from January to March 1977.
Melbourne has recorded its driest February to March period with only 10.8 millimetres in 183 years of records. Rain is most unlikely for at least another week with a large high pressure system sitting just west of King Island. Other very dry February to March periods in Melbourne were in 1859, 1870, 1882, 1915, 1923, 1934, 1936, 1940, 1965, 1967, 1997, and 2018. The events of 1859, 1870, 1934 and 2018 all followed a wet January over all of Victoria. Heavy rain arrived in April and continued well into the winter. The events of 1870 and 1934 did continue very wet, right up to December with major floods.
