Places in WA like Broome, Marble Bar, Carnarvon and Perth have had maximum and minimum temperatures about two to three degrees below the August normals.

To date maximum temperatures in Wangaratta have been a degree below normal this month and may not rise significantly above normal until near the end of the month.  

Frequent cold frontal passages have brought showery periods to NE Victoria and to the Riverina, but little or no rain further north where the crippling drought conditions show no signs of easing. 

Broken Hill has had only 21mm to date this year and only 130mm in the past 20 months since the beginning of January last year.

The previous driest 20-month period at Broken Hill was 179mms from September 1901 to February 1903.

Most places in our area during this period saw some near-normal rains in September and October 1902, then a very hot November and a wet December, then very high temperatures from January 1903 to early March 1903, then a wet period thereafter.  

Heavy rain has continued along the southern Victorian coast and very heavy rain in western parts of Tasmania.

Mt Read has had 1880mms since early May which is about three times Wangaratta's annual average. 

Seeing so many drought-stricken properties in our travels to outback Queensland is very depressing indeed and even more depressing at one town we stayed at was seeing a young woman hosing the footpath clean in front of her shop for about 15 minutes.

This town just had its driest April to July period for 137 years.   

Strange things are happening at Macquarie Island deep in the Southern Ocean.

The temperature reached 8.2 last Saturday morning at 3am, the warmest for August since 1985.

At this time there was a hurricane force NNW wind at 100km/h.

Late in August 1985 there was heavy rain in our area and more the last three months of that year. However the first four months of 1986 were very dry, but I cannot be sure the same rainfall pattern will occur for the rest of this year.