Rainfall has been the lowest on record across parts of the south-west in the past six months, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
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And despite Sunday morning’s downpour across the region, most cities and towns recorded lower than average rainfall for January.
The Bureau of Meteorology spokesman said the hardest hit towns were around Heywood, Dartmoor, Casterton and Port Campbell while the surrounding areas experienced rainfall that was “very much” below average.
“In the past six months, rainfall has been the lowest on record for parts of south-west Victoria,” he said.
About 18mm of rain fell in Warrnambool on Sunday, taking the monthly total to 24.2mm which was still well below the January average of 35.8mm.
“If it wasn’t for this, it would have been an extremely dry month,” the bureau spokesman said.
The lowest January rainfall recorded for Warrnambool was 0.6mm in 2001.
Mortlake experienced one of the region’s largest downpours on Sunday, recording almost 27mm of rain.
“That’s a decent drop of rain for this time of year,” the spokesman said.
Mortlake received almost three times as much rain in the last few hours of January compared to the rest of the month, taking its total to 37mm, which is more than the January average of 35.1mm.
Port Fairy recorded 11.2mm of rain on Sunday taking its monthly total to 17.6mm – a little over half of the January average of 33.7mm.
In Portland, 10.6mm of rain fell on Sunday bringing January’s total to 27.4mm – well below the monthly average of 37.1mm.
About 18mm of rainfall in Hamilton brought the total to 34.4mm, which is slightly above the January average of 34.1mm.
“Certainly given how dry it’s been over the last six to 12 months, we need a lot more (rain) than we’ve had to remove those deficiencies,” he said.
In the coming months the south-west was expected to record above average rainfall as well as above average temperatures.
Statistics show that towns across the south-west recorded higher than average temperatures for January with Warrnambool’s average of 25.6 degrees exceeding the January average of 24.5 degrees. Warrnambool’s hottest January day was on the 13th when the mercury hit 41.5 degrees.
