Weather report October 2022

 This may be a short report as we're in Canberra at present.  The month was wet - 3rd wettest October on record but temperate in terms of therms (anomaly very slightly above 0C).  It was also very windy.

Rainfall 

The month ended with 169.8 mm which as noted above was the 3rd highest fall on record. It didn't get close to challenging for second place (206mm in 1976 - which had the highest annual fall of 1442 mm).  The BoM recorded about 164 mm at the airport (there is no reading shown for 31 October) and 157 mm at Gabo Island.  Allowing for the squally nature of the falls (see below) such variation is quite reasonable.

My Weather station recorded non-trivial rain (>0.2 mm) on 15 days, with some emphasis on 21st to 27th.  

Some of the rain rates were quite impressive: the 240mm per hour recorded as a storm passed by on the 25th was the 3rd heaviest my WS has recorded.

At the end of the month my prorata estimate of the annual rainfall was 1450 mm.  A small amount above the existing high (deep?) record.  Another way of estimating the likely annual fall is rainfall to date plus the median falls for the next two months: the estimate in that way is 1326 mm: there are 3 exiting values higher than that.  We won't beat Sydney's effort - broke the all-time annual rainfall record in October - but it is going to be a wet year.

Temperatures

The overall measure of temperature difference in average for the period and the long term average  ended up at very close to zero.  There is a little rubber in that comment as the BoM site at the airport showed a maximum of 28.2C in the current record for 31 October (which seemed rather high) and a couple of other readings are not available for unknown reasons. Here is the development of the anomaly through the month: steady climb after a cold start.

Minimum Temperatures

Continuing a recent trend the average minimum temperature was above the average and 2021.  Only May and June this year have been below average.

Maximum Temperatures

In contrast the maximum temperature (18,6C) was well below 2021 and particularly the average.  Such a low average maximum has only been recorded twice since the BoM site commenced in 1993

Humidity

In summary a muggy month.  The lack of relative humidities significantly below 60 % s noticeable, as is the similarity of morning and afternoon readings - especially for the rainy period 21 -26 October.

As would be expected from the above the readings are well above average and 2021.

Wind

I have recently been concerned that my anemometer was under-reading the wind speed.  I don't think that was the case for October with a daily average run well above average and 2021.  

The strong winds were particularly evident from 12 - 14 October, which also showed as a period with very high gusts at the Airport.  On 13 October the total run was 539km, with hourly runs at a constant value in the mid 20 kms.  This was the longest run I have recorded.