October 2026 Mallacoota weather report

 In summary a wet and warm month.  Obviously proving that the warmth in the North Pacific (defining El Nino) is correlation rather than causation. Here is a selection of summary data for the month.

Rainfall

The total fall for the month recorded at my weather station (WS) was 128.1mm.  The daily falls have exceeded those recorded by BoM Airport (which only totaled 91.8mm) but been consistent with those recorded by other residents of the area suggesting to me that storm cells have focused on the Inlet rather than the coast.  Here is a comparative chart.

Rain fell on several days in the month.

This has led to a slight uptick in my pro-rata estimates of the likely annual fall (the actual year to date value - 629mm -  is already above my lowest-ever recorded annual fall, 531mm in 2019, but still a bit below the 2nd lowest fall).

I also track median falls (monthly and year to end of the month) shown in the chart below as a % of average for the statistic).  Is October a change in the pattern or an aberration?  Time will tell.

The highest rain rate recorded was 73.8mm/hr on the 25th.  This is the 74th highest rate I have recorded (out of 2606 records).  See also the section on Lightning/Storms later in this report.

Temperatures

The anomaly for the monthly ended at 1.80oC.  After a hot start the anomaly dropped then rose from mid-month, ending hovering close to +2oC.

The time series for the anomaly, and particularly the moving average show it has been climbing for the past several months.

A chart of the extremes shows the maximum temperature to be well above average for a high proportion of the days, with a less pronounced but broadly similar pattern for the minima.

A distribution of the extremes according to divergence from the mean shows that the significant differences in the extremes were (not unexpectedly from the above, biased to the hot side. 

In terms of heat waves etc the period from 20th to 24th - 5 days - had both extremes significantly, or for 2 of those days very significantly, above average.

Minimum Temperatures

The average minimum temperature was 11.29oC, 1.19oC above the mean value. The lowest temperature recorded was 5.5oC on the 14th, significantly below average.  Overall the average minimum was on the high end of values since 2019.

Maximum temperatures

The average daily maximum was 22.76oC, a toasty 2.4oC.above the mean value.  The highest temperature recorded was 31.7oC on the 12th: this is the 5th highest (of 248 readings) October maximum since 2019.  The overall result is very significantly above other years.

Somewhat surprisingly the majority of maxima occur against the 1100 hrs time bracket, reflecting the occurrence of cooling breezes in the afternoons, even in my relatively sheltered area.

Humidity

As a side issue here, everything being crazy due to the arrival of daylight saving, meaning the hours changed for the times recorded in the monthly protocol.  This took me some time to work why the first 3 days were not appearing.  The times shown below are those for Summer Time, so the first three values might be a little “off”.  Note the peaks on rainy days.

The morning rH values were on the lower side but not dramatically so.

For the afternoon reading results averaged lower than average but almost the same as 2025.

Wind

The data for daily gusts shows a reasonably stable situation 

Compared to history the average maximum gust is a little above 2025 but very close to average.

Solar

Solar radiation was fairly even across the month with lower values reflecting rain periods.

I have also charted the average solar radiation for the times produced by the protocol and the upper (+1SD) and lower (-1SD) bounds thereof.  It seems that moonlight generates a small amount of solar radiation!

Lightning and storms

There were a couple of fairly loud events in the month.  The chart below shows the total number of strikes within 40km of Mallacoota.  Note that this uses a log scale 2 = hundreds, 3 = thousands etc.

I also snipped two images (from the BoM app) of a noisy cell moving through on 31 October. Disregard the times on the images: the first is at 1925hrs ….

… and the second at 1935.

We scored 6.4mm of rain from this.

An invasion of Cabbage Whites

On I November our garden, especially the mauve Lavender and Hebe, were smothered in Cabbage Whites.  I don't add the word 'butterflies' as people who add the word 'bird' after an avian species name give me the raging oojahs.  I think the pictures are pretty self explanatory.

October 2026 Bird Report

 Many organised activities this month, including a campout by members of Birdlife East Gippsland (BLEG), a Hooded Plover banding Team and the Weeding Group of Friends of Mallacoota getting over (after a big-swell delay) to Gabo Island.  As I checked the eBird species maps I also noticed visits by several well known birding identities.

Here is an image of the banded Hooded Plover.  It has a green flag with code AL (the image below is mine - those on the Facebook group were by ALison GREEN).

 

 In breaking news, Al and mate hatched 3 chicks on 29 October. Thanks to Caroline Jones for the linked image..

Overall tally

Our overall tally for the month was 167 species, well above the average for the month almost up to the count (168) for 2025.  It appears from the report for October 2025 that we had a high level of expert visitation in that month (plus a Gabo report).  The results for the latest month are summarised in the following chart.

We added one species to the District List and 4 others to the District October List.  These are discussed in the “Species of Note” section below.  A list of species recorded and some attributes of these are in the page “Taxa” of this google sheet.

The WWTP continues to be closed to public access.  However East Gippsland Water arranged for a visiting group from Birdlife East Gippsland to be inducted to the Plant to undertake a survey in October. 

Categories

Here is a chart showing the percentage of total species seen against each category.  Data underlying this chart is in the page Categories in the linked sheet.

Observers have done very well this month with no category notable  as underperforming.  For the two most under-reported, Honeyeaters and Birds of Prey, the MIA are all less usual species and thus the difference could be seen as a positive for other years rather than a negative for this year.  We managed better than usual results for Seabirds (the Gabo visit helped here, together with some seawatching from folk at the campout) and Nightbirds after a late expedition by a member of the campout.

The most outstanding result was for the Flycatchers etc  category where 18 of the 20 species seen in previous Octobers were reported.  The only MIA were Satin Flycatcher (4 previous) and Flame Robin (3 previous).

Conservation concerns

A listing of the 14 taxa with legislatively recognised conservation concerns (7 at Commonwealth level and 7 at State level)  in in the page Conservation concern in the linked spreadsheet.

Species of Note

Bird of the Month

Glossy Ibis: first record in the District, although previously recorded further West in East Gippsland and in Bega Valley.  He is a snip from the eBird species map (orange pins are reports in the latest 30 days (to 24/10/2026).

Other notable species

• Emu: the Nauta Tce bird was seen on Genoa Rd, by many members of the cam[pout heading to the Gipsy Point boat trip, with a concerned resident controlling passing traffic.  Well done that resident!

• Australian Shelduck: seen at WWTP with several very young ducklings.

• Pacific Koel and Channel-billed Cuckoo both reported in the month.  (A total of 7 Cuckoo species were reported with only Pheasant Coucal - one historic record in the District - MIA.)

• Sahil Brush Cuckoo: First October record.  Appears in eBird at a number of locations (I think reflecting the various points at which observers started their checklists for the Wallagaraugh cruise.

• Buff-banded Rail: 2 records late in the month from the Broome St Lagoon.

• Eurasian Whimbrel: Not previously recorded in October.

• Lathams Snipe: At least 5 birds seen around a small dam in the horse paddock near the Winter Storage pond.

• Common Tern, White-fronted Tern, Little Tern and Fairy Tern seen on sandbars off Captain Stevenson’s Point.  After a very quiet period for Crested Tern a flock of at least 400 birds was present on 28 October.

• LIttle Penguin: First record in eBird for October - obviously reflects this being the first October for which a report has been made to me from Gabo Island.  (There are October reports to Birdata from Gabo  including Little Penguin but not in eBird.)

• Black-browed Albatross: seen from Geology Point.

• Eastern Cattle-Egret: 3 birds in breeding plumage seen at Broome St Lagoon on 30 October.  Sorry about quality of image.

• Little Eagle: only 4 previous October sightings.  Photographed

• Grey Goshawk:  Broome St Lagoon being pursued by 2 Red Wattlebirds!

• Ground Parrot: 4 records this month from Pebbly Beach to Shipwreck Creek

• Eastern Rosella: Only 5 previous October reports - this from Gipsy Point.

• Pilotbird: recorded from Lakeview Track by an observer heading for Howe Flat.

• Pink Robin: First October record, recorded at Double Creek Nature Trail.  More  commonly found in Tasmania and the Victorian High Country.

• Tawny Grassbird: Still present in numbers on Gabo.  This now seems to be a resident group of a species formerly found regularly North of about Sydney.

• European Goldfinch: formerly relatively common rarely seen in recent years.

Sources of records

As the BLEG trip added so many records I have added a separate column to the report for records from Birdata.  The number of records in the District from Birdata totalled 123 species of which 117 were recorded on outings as part of the campout with the extra records coming mainly from a separate visit by a birder driving into Howe Flat (but not recording any Eastern Bristlebirds).  There were also further records, reported to eBird, by members of the BLEG group outside the campout program.  

The list from Gabo totalled 33 species.

As is my usual practice I have attributed species in a priority order.  If I have recorded the species - including those I personally recorded on campout outings -  it is shown against MB (93 species); if added from some form of incidental contact (including the list of Gabo birds) it is incidental (55); if from Birdata and not in those two groups it is against that column (44); and finally the eBird column (19) is the list of birds I found recorded this month on a list of birds recorded on eBird in past Octobers after marking off the other sources. 

Rain storm and event 25 October 2026

 The BoM have forecast a fair lot of rain in the afternoon and evening of 25 October 2026.  Indeed that seems to be the case.   It started to rain just after 1430 and by 1500 we had received 14.7mm (at a maximum rate of 73.2 mm/hr).  The rain belt pictured here seems to be moving parallel to the State border (shepherded by the Howe Range I suspect rather than the line on the map)

There were some flashes and bangs (or at least rumbles) before the rain started.  Biltzortung showed this at 1425 hours.

And this at 1451- by which things had calmed down.

My friend's Tempest system, which includes external websites, has recorded 430 lightning strikes within 40km of Mallacoota by 1515hrs.  That was clearly the main body of the storm as the Tempest system recorded 481 strikes for the entire day.

The radar/weather map at 1520 shows plenty of activity happening  to our North, but it stills seems to be going by.  BoM - the Airport seemed to on the edge of the event  - recorded 10.4mm there and only 5.2mm at Gabo.

By 1619 we are up to 22.8mm.  We ended the day at 37mm with the Airport at 25.6mm and Gabo at 21mm.  Here is a chart showing the rain amount and rate as recorded at my WS.

The wind direction through the day was interesting.  It started from the NW and then about 0900hrs swung to the SE where it stayed until 2000hrs at which point it swung again to about SW.  Given the poor exposure of my site to wind from the East and South that matches fairly well to the wind shifts from the Airport.

September 2026 Mallacoota Weather report

 In summary, continuing the recent experience of a warm and very dry month.  

Some summaries of key data are in this Google Sheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eMbGfeSMKo6Hw1HFJqmNgQ1MIXpi_HV1oZdxyYi5Ir0/edit?usp=sharing 

Rain

It would be nice to get some.  This month totalled 27.7 mm with falls above 0.2 mm on 7 days.  For comparison BoM Airport recorded 18.6 mm and BoM Gabo 21.6 mm.  The Wunderground site at Nungatta  only managed 16.8mm.

The WS fall is 41% of the median fall for the month and positions the full year to date (486 mm) at 72% of the median fall to the end of September.  The falls in February and April give a less depressing look to the YTD series.

Not surprisingly my prorata estimate of the fall to the end of the year confirms the sorry story with estimated annual total of 687 mm rating as the 3rd lowest fall since BoM Airport records began in 1975.  I suspect/hope it is unlikely we will match the lowest fall (531mm in 2019) as that would mean only 31mm total for the remaining 3 months.

As an alternate view of the situation I calculated the average cumulative rainfall to date and the equivalent for 2026.  The next chart shows the difference: I think this is reasonably clear!

Temperatures

The temperature anomaly finished the month at +1.06oC with relatively little variation through the month.

The time series of anomaly values shows a resumption of the upwards movement., particularly in the moving average (red line) which eliminates seasonal effects.

The plots of daily extremes show a lot of variation particularly for the maximum series.

It was noticeable that the range of daily temperatures was quite broad, with the range above average for the day on 19 of the 31 days. The mean daily range was 2.5oC wider than the average for September.

Minimum Temperatures

The average daily minimum temperature was 9.01oC, placing the month in the middle of recent observations for September.

THe lowest temperature recorded in the month was 4.3oC against 0200 hrs on the 28th.

As for last month I checked the timing of the minimum temperatures.  In September 12 of the minima were recorded against 2200 hrs and 1 against 1800 hrs.  Under BoM rules all of these would be counted against the following day, making it very difficult to compare the two systems.

Maximum temperatures

The average daily maximum temperature was 21.09oC, placing the month as the warmest recent observations for September.  (It is difficult to compare with the BoM site as sea breezes, to which my WS are not exposed, cool the maximum on most days.)

I also checked the timing of the maxima.  As expected nearly all of them were against 1000hrs or 1400hrs but 2 were against 0600hrs (in one case with the same temperature recorded at 1000hrs) and once at 0200 hours.  These would all be logged by BoM against the previous day.

The hottest temperature recorded this month was 31.5oC against 1000 hrs on the 20th.  This was the 2nd hottest September day recorded on my WS, with the hottest being 34.5oC on the 19th September 2023.

Humidity

The daily humidities at my standard times (to suit the hours at which Ecowitt Monthly protocol delivers) show a normal pattern albeit with 3 days with very low readings.

The lowest readings for the low days, in all cases against 1000hrs, were even lower than the standard hours.  On the 19th and 20th the lowest readings were 20% and 21% respectively and on the 30th again 21%.  Looking at the previous records for my site there are only

• 5 days with humidity readings below 20% (3 of them in Septembers);

• 4 days with an rH of 20%; and 

• 3 days with an rH of 21% 

So such values are unusual but not impossibly so.

The average morning value (74.7%) was surprisingly a little above both 2025 and the average value.

The afternoon value was well below both other values.

Wind

September is the traditional month of “gales of the equinox” but this month was somewhat calmer than might have been expected.  No day had very strong winds ….

…. and the average maximum gust was lower than 2025 and the recent average.

Solar 

Fairly even through the month with drops around the days with “rain”.