The first week of April has been noteworthy for heavy rainfalls, at first in central Victoria and Gippsland with Melbourne and suburbs recording their wettest April day since 1977.
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Wilsons Promontory with 116 millimetres in two days had its heaviest April rains since 1901. This occurred after the driest-ever February to March period in 183 years of records in Melbourne and at many other places nearby. Very soon after, a complex active low pressure formed just off the Queensland and NSW coast brought widespread heavy rainfalls with major flooding at some towns. The heaviest rainfalls were 254 millimetres at Penrith, 245 at Gosford and 261 at Port Macquarie (the wettest start to April since 1963).
The rainfalls were light to moderate further west into our regions, the heaviest, 67 millimetres at Moree, already well above average rainfall for April and the wettest start to April since 1988.
Further north, Goondiwindi recorded 136 millimetres in three days, the wettest for April also since 1988. Over in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, Broome, after a very dry December to February period of only 23 millimetres, recorded well above normal rainfall of 140 millimetres during March. The period December to February 1987-1988 was also very dry at Broome, then heavy rain did fall during March 1988. Alice Springs with 226 millimetres had its wettest March since 1988. The rest of 1988 was rather wet with a mild wet winter and early spring. October 1988 itself was dry and hot but November and December were very wet, particularly in Victoria.
Carnarvon in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia recorded a maximum temperature of 40.6 degrees on Wednesday April 3, one of the hottest April days in over 115 years of records. Other very hot April days were in 1910, 1911, 1928, 1937, 1958, 1998 and 2017. The majority of these did lead to a wetter than average year in our region. The town itself went through a very dry period only 54 millimetres from October 2022 to January 2024. A deluge of 78 millimetres occurred on February 25.
An active cold front reached Victoria and Tasmania late on Monday, April 8, and brought heavy rains once again around Melbourne suburbs. Melbourne itself recorded 36 millimetres to Tuesday morning and Scoresby 40 millimetres, taking the monthly totals to 103 millimetres and 133 millimetres respectively. It was the second successive April with over 100 millimetres rainfall in Melbourne. The last time this happened in Melbourne was 1995 and 1996, and before that in 1964 and 1965 and in 1900 and 1901. There were three successive wet Aprils of over 100 millimetres from 1934 to 1936 in Melbourne.
The active cold front brought only light to moderate rainfalls to the rest of Victoria but the first snowfalls of the season to alpine resorts. Because the cold south-south west airstream had low dew point temperatures at rural centres, frosts are expected for the next two mornings with daily maximums not exceeding 26 degrees for the rest of this autumn. The rainfall totals this month at rural centres in north east Victoria to date are well down on average. However significant rain is anticipated around April 18 with some thunderstorms.
