Little relief is in sight for central Victorian’s battling the heat and lack of rain with only average summer rainfalls predicted over the next three months following near record-breaking temperatures throughout October.
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With an average high of 26.6 degrees, Bendigo was more than two degrees hotter than the long-term November average for the first 27 days of this month, accompanied by only 34.4 millimetres of rain, well below the long-term average of 46.6 millimetres.
Aside from the 6.4 millimetres and 24.2 millimetres that fell in 2012/13 respectively it was the lowest November rainfall in Bendigo since 2006.
Bureau of Metorology senior forecaster Chris Godfred said it was too early to say whether Bendigo’s spring heatwave had broken any records, but it had come close.
“Over the past three months, so just the end of winter and the first couple of months of spring Victoria has generally been at least two or three degrees above the long-term average and if you look at October by itself it’s pretty close to a record,” he said.
Mr Godfred said rainfall had also been down, due in part to the strongest El Nino system the state had seen since the summer of 1997/8.
“Certainly in the western half of the state, which includes Bendigo, most areas had only about 20 per cent of their rainfall for the month of October so it was certainly very dry,” he said.
“If you look at a monthly scale you’re looking at fairly significant deficiencies over the past three months.
“You can’t always say there’s a direct one-to-one relationship between the El Nino and rainfall in south-east Australia because there are other factors that influence the rainfall pattern but certainly the El Nino doesn’t help and most of the big droughts we have tend to coincide with El Ninos.”
November maximum temperatures in Bendigo have now been higher than the long-term average for four of the past five years.
The wettest day this month was on November 5 when 29.8 millimetres of rain fell in Bendigo – the next highest rainfall was 1.6 millimetres.