The month of October has been notably wetter and slightly cooler than normal in the Riverina and most of the eastern half of Victoria.
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The rest of the nation has been decisively drier with maximum temperatures around two to three degrees above the October normal.
The arrival of the wet season at Darwin and at Broome and at Wyndham has not eventuated yet, being more than four weeks late already. Darwin recorded only 1.6 millimetres of rain during October, the driest since 1.2 millimetres in 1982.
![October has been notably wetter and slightly cooler than normal in the Riverina and most of the eastern half of Victoria, unlike other Australian centres. File picture October has been notably wetter and slightly cooler than normal in the Riverina and most of the eastern half of Victoria, unlike other Australian centres. File picture](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/zVtrQGhRGBmiD3RNa8bKgt/b4917499-51cc-476d-8d51-c041d980c42c.jpg/r0_0_4738_3159_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Other very dry Octobers of less than 3 millimetres were in 1941, 1948, 1953, 1955, 1987 and 2006. The post office records showed very dry Octobers in 1878, 1881, 1891, 1896 and 1926 at Darwin. The period November through to next March in our region after all these cases of very dry Octobers in Darwin were warmer than normal and one or two months yielded above average rainfalls at many places, relieving the very high fire danger.
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Many places north from Forbes all the way to Longreach, Queensland have had very dry conditions from August to October with maximums two to three degrees above normal. At Dubbo only 35 millimetres were recorded from August to October. Other very dry such periods at Dubbo were in 1919, 1928, 1931, 1982, 2006, 2007 and 2019. Dangerous bush fire situations existed from 1931, 1982, 2006 and 2019.
The central northern district of Victoria towns of Lake Eildon and Yea had much needed rainfalls after one of the driest Septembers in 146 years of records. Past records of very dry Septembers at both these towns were in 1907, 1914, 1938, 1944, 1946, 1951, 1961, 1994, 2008, and 2018.
In Victoria we had Black Friday bushfires in January 1939, January and February 1952 bushfires in Victoria which were preceded by huge fires in the Blue Mountains in December 1951, the Dandenong Ranges of January 1962 and the Lorne fires, very unusually late in late April 1962 and Black Saturday bushfires. After the dry September of 1946, the Otway Ranges were engulfed by bushfires in January 1947.
On a wetter note Wonthaggi recorded its wettest October with 157.7 millimetres since the 164.6 millimetres in 2000. We certainly had a very hot summer in 2000-01. Wilsons Promontory, with 166 millimetres for October, recorded its wettest October since 207 millimetres in 2013, which also led to a very hot summer in 2013-14.
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