A look at recent weather observations on the Bureau of Meteorology’s website has corrected my gut feeling that Townsville had another very dry winter. The total for June-July-August was 30 mm so, paltry though it might seem, it was significantly more than the 18 mm median (see averages here). Here is what we’ve had, according to the BoM.
The main reason I was wrong was that less than 1 mm of the total has fallen since the middle of July. Six weeks of clear skies, increasingly hot days (topping out recently in the low 30s) and no rain has left the city looking desiccated, even though people are still rebuilding their homes and lives after the February floods.
What can we look forward to, then? September is typically our driest month, and October isn’t much better, so no immediate relief is in sight. We might get some useful rain in November but we might also have to wait until Christmas.
It’s not called the Dry Season for nothing!
Update: total rainfall for September was … wait for it … 0.0 mm according to the BoM.
Update 2: total rainfall for October was a (very) little better: 1.2 mm
according to the BoM so we have received less than 2 mm in the last three and a half months. No wonder the city looks so brown.