Rain eased last month

The Warragul district returned to drier conditions last month after a wet August when the month’s rainfall almost doubled the 115-year average.

Fifty-six millimetres of rain was registered at Warragul in September and the Bureau of Meteorology’s weather station at nearby Nilma North measured slightly higher at 61.2 millimetres.

In August 194 millimetres of rain fell on Warragul.

Last month’s rainfall brought the total for the first nine months of the year to 773.9 millimetres and if average falls are recorded over the final three months the 1000 millimetre mark will be passed again.

The rain on the 16 days it fell in September was generally light with only one 24-hour period reaching double figures, 12.6 millimetres to 9am on September 19.

It came at the end of a three-day stretch that yielded 24.6 millimetres that was close to half the month’s total.

While September may have been much drier than the month before it wasn’t much warm.

At the Nilma North station the maximum temperature only once topped 20 degrees, on September 22 when it got as high as 22.1 degrees.

Minimum daily temperatures were also low. On all but four days the minimum was below 10 degrees with the lowest readings two degrees.

The Bureau of Meteorology has recently released a new national heatwave warning service.

The new service will come in the form of an alert on the BOM Weather app and the bureau website that a heat hazard is forecast within the next four days, allowing Australians to prepare for and lessen the impacts of a heatwave event.

The alerts will include heatwave warnings issued by the bureau along with five sets of action statements aligned to heatwave severity, agreed with by partner health and emergency services agencies across Australia. Additionally, in the event of a heatwave, warnings will be issued by the bureau with health messages relating to heat provided by state and territory agencies.