July 2012

RAINFALL

Another month of above average rain! For the last 4 months most of the region beat the average. In fact this has been the 5th month out of7 for the year that Geelong has had above average rain – we have scored 408 mm so far, compared to the average 284 mm for this time of the year. Apart fromsome of the Golden Plains – Anakie area the rest of the region from the Bellarine Peninsula to the Western Otways has received above average falls, despite the Bureau of Meteorology’s 3-monthly prediction that there was only a 30-35% chance of this eventuating. This being the fifth consecutive outlook failure since February, we can saynothing for the reliability of those models!Only six days did not have some rain, making July seem even much wetter than it was: the average number of rain days in July is 17. Many small totals werereceived and the wettest 24 hours saw 11.6 mm at 9 am on the 2nd.Lavers Hill in the Otways recorded 240 mm, the highest in the state.

TEMPERATURES

Daily maximum temperatures averaged 14.3 degrees C and minimums 6.7 degrees C at Breakwater. This is approximately half a degree warmer than the long-term averagefor the Geelong area. Temperatures taken in urban environments can never be directly compared even from one year to another because of the gradually growingurban heat island (UHI) effect which has been well-documented elsewhere and seen to be quite active in Geelong, especially since the site change from Mt Duneed last year.There were 3 cold overnight temperatures (below 2 deg C), with the lowest being minus 1.2 deg C on the 8th. On the coldest day the temperature reached 11.7 deg Con the 1st; on the warmest day – the 16th – the top was 17.9.

OTHER FEATURES

July was notable for its calm days. Despite being hit by a number of weak cold fronts, no days recorded wind gusts above 54 kph. There were 3 frosts, on successive mornings – 7th, 8th and 9th, and no storms.

RAINFALL DATA

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