Between these two systems there is an elongated, narrow belt of high pressure with two centres.

One is situated near Cobar and the other close to Macquarie Island, which has had 40 successive days of rain and a total of only 22 hours of sunshine during this 40-day period.

This synoptic situation is typical of June and may persist for the rest of this month, as the complex low over the Tasman Sea may take a week to reach New Zealand.

Hobart had more than 40mm to 9am on June 23, taking this month's rainfall to 75mm - well above average for June.

This followed a very dry May of 15.8mm and before that, above average rainfalls of 72 and 78mm for March and April.

A study of this rainfall profile in Hobart shows that it also happened in 1846, 1932 and 1946.

The winter season for the last two episodes - in 1932 and 1946 - tended to slightly wetter than normal weather in north east Victoria usual and temperatures generally below normal.

The last four months of those two episodes saw increasing dryness, warming up to above normal warmth from after about mid-October for the rest of the year in our area.

Though it was still not as hot as last year.

Many places in Western Australia from Broome, mainly along the coast to the central west are experiencing one of their warmest Junes on record, and an almost complete absence of any rain. Geraldton itself looks set to record its warmest-ever June in more than 120 years of temperature records, breaking the previous highs of the Junes of 1983, 1985, 2006 and 2017.

On June 5, Geraldton recorded 30.9 degrees and this was over one degree above the previous hottest June day for both 1998 and 2015.

Other places have had warmer Junes in 1918, 1947, 1958, 1970 and 2015.

None of these led to a winter season warmer than normal in north east Victoria.