I am trying a new approach of copying the report from last month and editing!
In summary a slightly cool month overall, with drizzly rain a feature of the precipitation. Winds were generally light.
A few of the stats I have used are in this Google sheet.
Rain
The total fall (87.8 mm) was notably above last year (22.6 mm) and well above the median.
It was quite evenly spread, with larger falls on the 24th and 30th. Most of the falls were quite gentle with 97mm/hour on the 3rd being the only notable high rate.
Every month so far this year has been well above median, and at the end of August we are already above the annual total for 27 of the last 48 years. Obviously, we surpassed the annual median fall during this month, ending with a Year-to-date total of 938.2mm. Not surprisingly, my pro-rata estimate for the annual fall is producing an estimate (1400.2 mm) well above average. If this continues we will have the second highest annual fall recorded at my WS or the BoM Airport site exceeded only by the 1442 mm recorded at the Airport in 1985. (Looking at the very long series for Gabo Island - starting in 1868 - only 3 years are >1400mm with the record being 1515mm in 1978.)
Temperatures
The temperature anomaly was -0.42C with the maxima more below average than the minima. The development of the final value shows warm periods near the start and finish of the month, with a rather cold patch in mid month.
A plot of daily extremes shows both series fluctuating through the month.
Minimum temperatures
There were 3 days with significantly low minima, with the lowest temperature being 3.3C on the 19th. This is not unduly cold with 8.6% of August minima being lower. On the other hand in the period 21st to 27th 5 of the 7 days had a significantly high minimum, with the 13.6C on the 26th being the =4th highest minimum recorded for the month.
Maximum temperatures
4 days were significantly below average and 3 days significantly above average: these extremes were all spread so no heat waves nor cold snaps. The coldest day (Max of 10.7C was the 9th lowest (of 1000 even) recorded.
Humidity
In essence a reasonably humid month, especially in the afternoons, apart from a surprising drop in afternoon readings on the 27th and 29th associated with fairly strong NW winds.
Wind
Many days had short wind runs, with only 5 being longer than 100m. The longest run was 181kkm on the 4th, but that was only the 16th longest August run.
Lightning and Radiation
These data come from a friends WS which links to the Tempest recording system. Very few (14) lightning strikes were recorded within 40km of Mallacoota this month.
The Solar radiation chart shows a series of 12 month moving averages (thus centred 6 months ago) for average solar radiation and a second series incorporating a reading for maximum solar radiation. Note that in both cases the chart appears to show a drop. If produced with the axes showing the full range (ie starting at 0) the line appears almost flat in both cases. (Welcome to the world of Gee Whiz Graphics favoured by some elements of the Media!)
Most Metaphorical Day
The particular metaphor I have in mind is "This weather has got the pox." I looked at 5 variables: low temperature; high temperature; rain; wind gust; and average solar radiation, ranking each day with the least pleasant reading (eg lowest temperature, fastest gust) as #1. A small issue arose in that for 2 days the solar radiation reading was not available: I overcame this by ranking those days as #1. I then calculated the average rank, both including and excluding the radiation variable. The calculations are in
this Google sheet and here is the result as a chart:
The two series are reasonably similar (reflected in a correlation coefficient of 0.81) with the poxiest day (the 30th) being the same - by some distance from 2 - regardless of whether radiation is included or not. The same two days (31st and 23rd) were the most pleasant although switch order depending on the treatment of radiation.
It is a bit of a fiddle to extract the radiation data and it appears not to add very much. So I will investigate whether to exclude it from future efforts. The issue of missing data in this variable seems not to be a regular event.
I took this a bit further by covering all 7 Augusts (2019-25) for which I have data from my Weather Station. This required a little fiddling about to sort out ranks for duplicate values (for example there are: 91 days with zero rain; 3 days with a minimum temperature of 3.3C). However I got there eventually (giving the tied observations the same, lowest possible, score (eg the 0 rainfall days all got a rank of 215). The results for the 7 years were:
| Year |
Avg rank |
| 2019 |
97.63 |
| 2020 |
98.86 |
| 2021 |
113.72 |
| 2022 |
118.66 |
| 2023 |
132.39 |
| 2024 |
135.83 |
| 2025 |
101.74 |
As a low rank is less pleasant weather this suggests that this August was one of the less pleasant years while 2023 and 2024 were 'better'. I shall look further at this in future months but it appears that a major factor driving down the average rank is lower rainfall and higher maxima. Strong wind gusts may not be as important (noting that my WS is not well situated to record wind).
A Patersonia
Very few Orchids visible - too cool and cloudy for Tetratheca to be open. This Glossodia was all I snapped.
