East Albury retiree Tony Opie and David Street barber Bill Strang raised concerns about the figures last week after they collected 80mm more rain than the airport this year.

Bureau spokeswoman Julie Evans said the weather service compared figures collected by all three of its Albury rain gauges and found little difference.

“We’ve got three weather stations in Albury — two at the airport and one at the Hume Reservoir — and we’ve had a look at them and we don’t think there’s a problem with the data,” she said.

“Comparing with the nearby stations in the area, the differences are only minimal.

“The rain gauges are bureau standard gauges and home-based gauges can be calibrated differently.

“The amount of rain that actually falls into a rain gauge can be lower when it’s windy, and airports can record a little lower because of the wind there.”

Doctors Point resident Peter Tremain has backed the bureau, with his rain gauge measuring almost the same as the airport station.

He collected 440mm at his home this year, about 20mm less than the airport.

“I check the rain every day and this morning I checked it and we had 3mm and the paper said we had nothing, so the rain is very patchy,” Mr Tremain said.

“In the old days, we used to have widespread soaking rain; if it was pouring in Albury it would be pretty much raining in Wodonga.

“But these days it could be raining just around the corner, just 500m away, but it’s dry here.”

Ms Evans said in some regions the bureau used what she called “volunteer rain collectors” who have one of the bureau’s rain gauges at their home.

She said the volunteers took measurements daily and the data was used in addition to the figures from the official weather stations.

There are no volunteer rain collectors in Albury but the bureau would consider employing some to better measure the city’s rainfall.