The daily weather log

Most days in July were cooler than normal. The first chart shows cold days persisted for more than a fortnight. The coldest, on the 16th, reached only 10.5°, which is 5° below normal. However, the weather was mainly pleasant, with more fine days and fewer cloudy days than usual.

There were warm nights at each end of the month, including one 7° above normal. In the middle, there were thirteen frosty nights in a row (below +2.2 degrees in the thermometer screen). The lowest temperature for the month was minus 4.4°. There were 17 frosts in total; far fewer than the 28 frosts of July 2002. (Note added in 2014: Up to, and including 2011, minima have been below minus 4° only sixteen times:  June 2000 (5), June 2002 (1), July 2002 (6), July 2003 (2) and July 2007 (2).)

With both days and nights being so cold, the weekly average temperature went as low as 4.7° below normal on the 17th.

There were seven rain days, which is normal, but the highest reading (on the 1st) was only 4.2 mm.

 Comparing July months

This July had colder daytime maximum temperatures than any July in the last seven. Night-time minimum temperatures were also a bit on the low side. July 2002 stands out from the others. It had by far the lowest night-time temperatures in these years: three degrees below the average. Cloudiness was low in both 2002 and 2007.

The month’s rainfall of 9.0 mm is quite low, in the 12th percentile for July. However, there have been few dry months recently, so no totals for more than one month are as low as the 20th percentile.

Data. Rainfall data is from Manilla Post Office, courtesy of Phil Pinch. Dew point values before August 2005 are from Tamworth Airport 6 am data supplied by the Bureau of Meteorology. Temperature and other data are from 3 Monash Street, Manilla.