The storms brought rainfall from 5-15mm at low level places close to the Murray River, and heavier falls of 25-35mm in the Central West of NSW.

Last Monday, we were under a warm frontal situation. For most of the day, there was persistent light rain.

The maximum temperature at Wangaratta was only 12.5, and this was 6 degrees lower than Melbourne suburbs.

The Border and north east was in the colder air ahead of this warm front, while Melbourne was in the warmer and drier conditions behind the front. Last Monday, Darwin had its hottest June day in 80 years of records with a 35.0 reading.

The previous June record was 34.5 in 1958.

There was record 35.2 on May 26, 1958 and again on May 18, 2016.

There was also a long run of warmer than normal months from January to May at Cocos Island in both 1958 and 2016, and also in 1998 and 2002.

There were some very low winter temperatures, but not all that frequent in north east Victoria, most of them in July.

The heaviest rains were close to the winter solstice date of June 20-22, briefly the third week of July and the latter half of August.

My son, Anthony spent last weekend compiling monthly sea surface temperatures for Cocos Island for each month from 1854 up to April 2020.

The annual average sea surface temperature for these 165 years was 27.26.

For the first 85 years up to 1939, the annual average was 27.08 with very little change from year to year.

There were two relatively cool periods averaging 26.80 from 1898 to 1908 and 26.88 from 1934 to 1939.

After this second cool period, there was a significant rise of one degree to 27.81 from 1940 to 1945.

From 1946 to 1978, the average sea surface temperature had fallen more than half a degree but kept fairly stable at 27.20.

Then, from 1979 onwards, there was a gradual rise.

Over the last 26 years to the present, the average sea surface temperature at Cocos Island has risen to 27.8.

Overall, the warmest months were generally March and April, while the coolest months were August to October.