Most places in our regions certainly benefited by much-needed rainfalls that began on Sunday morning, October 8.
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Places like Bourke, Coonamble, Trangie, Dubbo and Parkes all had received about 20mm by Sunday evening, making it the heaviest daily fall since last March.
Heavy rain and thunderstorms occurred during the weekend at Mt Isa.
A total of 39mm rainfall was recorded to Sunday morning.
This was the heaviest daily fall for October since October 20,1955 when 61.7mm fell and the third wettest at Mt Isa since records started in 1926.
The other wetter October day was in 1930.
Both 1930 and 1955 were very wet in October. They were also slightly warmer than usual in our regions, with a high frequency of thunderstorms.
It continued wet and unsettled the last two months of 1930.
The current synoptic surface charts show several centres of low pressure sitting over inland parts of the nation.
Thunderstorms have been reported at the Giles outback station, Western Australia and also in central parts of the NT and outback Queensland. More rain fell at Roma and St George, which had heavy falls a week ago.
It has been very dry in Alice Springs since last February.
The rainfall at Alice Springs from March to September totaled only 6.4mm. This was the driest there since 4.1mm in 1924.
Out of the 6.4mm which fell from March to September this year, 5.2mm fell on September 30. If the 5.2mm fell on October 1, instead then this year's March to September period would have been the driest since 1883 when no rain fell for 228 successive days.
The highest temperatures for each month from July to September this year at Broome were very similar to 1995.
A few other places in the Northern Territory and outback Queensland had their highest temperatures for August and September also since 1995.
There was a lot of unsettled wet, stormy conditions from about October 22 to well into January 1996 in our regions.
Much the same is expected up to next January.