Weather Report February 2026

The statistics for the month suggest it was an average month, in that most metrics come out close to the mean.  My subjective view is that is close to average, in the sarcastic sense of close to "ordinary".  It is possible this is flavoured by the last few days of the month having 8/8 cloud, 24/7.

Rain

We ended the month with 63.8 mm at my Weather Station (WS) at Angophora Drive,  This compares with BoM records of 77.8 mm at the airport and 62.8 mm at Gabo Island.  My WS data is 130% of median for the month and after 2 months we are at 122% of the median YtD.

My pro-rata estimate of fall for the year is showing something similar to the usual pattern, although without such a pronounced early peak.  At the end of the month the estimate for the year is 1165 mm.

Temperatures

The month started off much below average and the anomaly (current average - long term mean) then rose to hover close to 0^o C for the last 2 weeks of the month

The history of the anomaly shows a very variable series (blue line) with a strong seasonal element which is evened out by the 12 month moving average (red line).  The trend is still heading down.

The chart of daily extremes for the month is basically below average with a few high spikes.  

It is a much less unpleasant than the heat wave experienced in more Western areas, as evidenced by this chart comparing maxima at Mallacoota with those from Walpeup ...

 ... in the centre of the Mallee.

In Mallacoota there were 3 days, scattered across the month with both minimum and maximum significantly above average, but no runs of this rating.  Also, no days with significantly below average for both readings.

Minimum Temperatures

The average minimum for the month at my WS was 15.79^o C approximately 0.4^o C below the average for the month at that site.  This continues to keep the series for 2026 at the bottom of the range.

Early in the month we had cool spells with 2 minima significantly below average and 4 very significantly below average.  The lowest temperature recorded for the month was 8.9^o C on the 3rd, the lowest February temperature recorded there.  Including readings for the (usually colder) BoM airport site there were 6 lower February minima.  There were 6 days with minima significantly above average, but none were very significantly above. 

Maximum Temperatures

The average maximum for the month was 24.6^o C,  0.2^o C below the average for the month at my WS.  This places 2026 in the middle of the range for February.  

The maximum at my WS for the month was 33.5^o C on the 22nd: in total 4 days were significantly above average.  No maxima were significantly below average.

Humidity

The chart of daily humidity readings for standard times is highly variable.  The afternoon reading on the 4th was very low for this area .  The high readings at both times from the 23rd onwards match up with the period of perpetual cloud.

The time series of readings at my WS shows this month to be about normal'

Wind

A couple of rather windy period with runs longer than 200 kms

Overall the average run of 107 km was below average, and well short of the run in 2025.

Tempest Data

These data come from a friends site, close to the Wharf and include a couple of variables my station doesn't collect.

Lightning

This covers a 40 km radius and includes information from a range of other systems as well as my friend's site.  The number of strikes has a very large range so I have used a logarithmic range (log 10=1, log 1,000 = 3.0).  There have been a lot of strikes in recent months with February totalling 2248.

Solar Radiation

In view of the cloud in the last week of the month I had expected the radiation to be very low.  Our solar water heater ran up the white flag after 3 days!  However looking at the totals, average solar radiation this month was higher than 2 of the 4 years for which I had data and the highest daily reading this month was top..

Back from 505

 We are now back in Mallacoota with a very easy drive, taking less than 6 hours.  Frances commented on the boring stretch between Stratford and Bairnsdale that she almost missed having to think about overtaking on the passing lanes!  We also noted that there seemed to be many more boats than caravans being towed, although that changed back for the last leg from Cann River to Mallacoota (where some folk seem to have been confused about which they had).

That is from a FB post, and not seen by me!

At 1030 on the 22nd this was posted to FB (the crane came from Bairnsdale).

Going back to the 21st, in the evening I was still short of a new bird for the day so went to Mullet Creek  where I heard a Brown Gerygone.  I also saw a few Grey-headed Flying Foxes, but not a dense camp (yet).

Later in the evening the sky got a bit of colour for the moon to nestle in!

This is a panorama shot, which my phone handled quite well.

The main colour was on the Western end of the sky.

Some birdy snaps

 On our walk this morning Frances peered hard into the edge of the Broome St Lagoon.  She thought there was something interesting - probably not a baby duck.  On borrowing he binoculars it was clearly a Common Sandpiper, which is not at all common here.  There are a handful of records here from October -November last year (and the species is better recorded on either side of us).  Here is my phone photograph, with helpful arrows.

I went back with a camera about an hour later but the bird had gone.  So I took some other photos, using a bit of digital zoom, so a bit fuzzy.  First up Chestnut Teal.

Then both expected Teal species.

A Royal Spoonbill on a bad hair day.

More tonsorial issues.

Going to the jetties in the end of Coulls Inlet, I was pleased with the eye colour of this Little Black Cormorant.

And this Silver Gull.

Wedgies at the Narrows Car Park

Having seen 2 Buff-banded Rails at the small dam near the Narrows Car Park yesterday I decided to drive down to see if they were having an early snack on the 3rd.  (I also wondered if a Nankeen Night Heron or 5 might be there before the fisherhordes arrived.  

No fisher people nor Rail nor Night Heron.  However I did hear a whingey noise coming from the big dead tree in the paddock.  On checking there were three Wedge-tailed Eagles up there, about 200m from the fence.

They were all very chatty the whole time.

I think from the overall dark plumage this is the adult of the family.  It certainly behaved the most independently of the three.

December 2025 Weather Report

The summary is a rather cool dry month.  This is a little surprising as I had expected that a La Nina would have established itself once the Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) had died down.  However I cannot find the Climate Drivers section on the new (still appalling) BoM website.

A review of the year as a whole will be compiled in the near future (mainly once I have worked out what to focus on) . 

Rainfall

A dry end to the year with my Weather Station (WS) only recording 36mm which was 53% of the median fall for December.  Obviously the prorata estimate ends up with the recorded total, but the gradual downward trend in the second half of the year is interesting.

In terms of the month itself, I found it interesting to compare the falls recorded by my WS and the BoM site near the Airport.

There are obvious differences in the daily falls, but these are occluded by the 0900hrs reset used by the BoM vs my WS reset at 0000hrs.  The cumulative fall series shows that my WS picked up squalls on the 1st and 2nd whereas the Airport scored more around the 25th.

Temperatures

The temperature anomaly finished the month at -0.56oC.  After a very cold first three days the temperature rose until the last week of the month which was quite cool/cold.

A time series of anomaly values shows a fair amount of variability, including a seasonal component.  I have used a 12 period moving average to remove the seasonality and the value of the average including this month continues the downward trend of recent months (shown by the red line).

A plot of the daily extremes shows both rising and falling around the daily averages but with 2 spikes in the maximum series.

Minimum temperatures

The average daily minimum for the month was 12.95oC.  The lowest temperature recorded was 7.6oC on the 1st day of the month: this is the second lowest December temperature recorded on my weather station, and including a further 773 values from the BoM Airport site (generally a little cooler due to greater exposure to winds from the South and East) back to 1993 only includes a further 12 records with a lower temperature.

We ended with 10 observations of minima significantly below the monthly average and 2 significantly  above the monthly average.  The high number of significantly low minima gave an overall minimum 1.5oC below the longer term average recorded by my WS.

The time series of clustered readings by year shows this month continuing the recent crawl along the bottom of the cluster.

Maximum temperatures

The average daily maximum for the month was 23.71oC, very close to the average of monthly maxima from my WS.  The highest temperature recorded was 37.7oC on the 18th day of the month: this is the 3rd highest December temperature recorded on my weather station with the other 2 reading being at the end of the month in December: and we know what happened then.  Fortunately that has not been repeated thus far.  Including a further 783 values from the BoM Airport site (generally a little cooler, even after rough adjustment for greater exposure to winds from the South and East) back to 1993 only includes a further 6 records with a higher temperature (the highest December temperature in my records was 42.0oC in 2009 with my WS having a highest ever of 40.7oC on 30 December 2019.

We ended with 14 observations of maxima significantly below the monthly average and 7 significantly (5 of them very significantly) above the monthly average.  As a result of the very significant readings the maximum ended only 0.1oC below the monthly average.

The time series of clustered readings by year shows this month in the middle of the cluster.

Important: Alternative assessments of significance

I have 2 series of readings to consider when looking at longer term averages.  The 'purest' is the (now) 7 year series  of observations from my weather station (giving 186 records for the previous 6 Decembers).  I have been using that approach for the last two years.  

The alternative is to extent that series by including observations from the BoM site at the Airport for the years 1993 to 2018 (approximately an extra 780 records allowing for days missing from the BoM record for various reasons).  The problem is that conditions at the BoM site can be somewhat different to those at Angophora Drive, due mainly to the cooling sea breezes at the Airport site: I have used regression estimation to adjust for that but it is not pure.

In the past 2 months I have felt (and my feelings, plus $5, will buy you a long black at Lucy's) that the shorter series is not including enough variation, so the standard deviation is low and a higher number of observations than should be the case are being rated as significantly above the average.  So what are the facts?

I calculated, using an ACCESS function,  from the raw data the average daily minimum and maximum temperature by month and the standard deviation of those values.  I then plotted curves for the averages and +/- 1SD for each.  Here are the results:

Without performing tests of significance, eyeballing suggests there is bugger-all difference between them (which is of course pleasing).  So what the  is going on with my gut feelings?  

I then compared the data I had first used in my anomaly analysis for December (Av Minimum 14.29oC SD 1.13oC) with the result from this later analysis (Av Minimum 14.29oC - EXCELLENT - SD 2.90oC - what the ?) .  I realised that for the anomaly analysis, instead of calculating the SD from original data I had taken the SD of the averages as calculated.  DOHHH.  So not only had I come up with some erroneous data but I had also proved Trewin (Snr)'s Law "Any interesting statistic is probably a processing error!"

The good thing to come out of this is that I am now confident I am doing the right thing - or at least a not egregiously wrong thing - in using a series restricted to my WS.

Humidity

For both the standard times the average of daily values of relative humidity (rH) are: 

• below the average for December recorded by my weather Station - the afternoon reading to a greater extent than the morning readings; and
• only greater than the value for 2019 (see comments on maximum temperature above).

The chart of daily values is largely as expected (although the first few days are a bit confused).

The comparison of 2025 with 2024 and the average since 2019 is interesting in the similarity of pattern for the two series.  In both cases 2025 is above average until September (when the SSW episode took hold) and since then November is an outlying high value.  I don't have the training or knowledge to comment further on this.

Wind

A neighbour (who I rate as being likely to have a considered view) commented on Facebook that "Seems to have been inordinately windy this month.".  My immediate response was to note that my site was not good for assessing wind due to being sheltered from the South and East.

The daily runs show a very windy period on 12-13th and a few other draughty days.

Looking at the monthly average shows this month to have a little draughtier than some other recent months but still below the average for December.

This apparent conflict caused me to look at a longer series of monthly observations.  As might be expected there is a fair level of seasonality in the raw numbers so I again calculated a 12 period moving average.  That average shows a steady decline up to March 2022 followed but a much gentler level of decline.  I wonder whether this reflects a growth in garden shrubs having blocked a greater proportion of the wind over time?  If so, tough: I like the lemons and the flowers in the gardens!

Tempest data

As previously noted a friend has given me access to his data stored on the Tempest system from his WS near the main wharf.  From this I have monitored the number of lightning strikes (in a 40km radius) and the average solar radiation.

Lightning

During the month 323 Lighting strikes were recorded on the Tempest system against the wharf site.  This is unremarkable for the month.

The Tempest system also contains data for a site at Burragate.  The snip from Google Earth below shows the two locations and the 40km lightning zones.  The Burragate site logged 1235 strikes in the month, so there was obviously a lot more electrical action up the coast and ranges.

Solar Radiation

The raw level of radiation was a little lower than expected for a dry Summer month, but the moving average continues a fairly flat trajectory.