Cold, cloudy wet February 2008

The daily weather logWeather log February 2008

Reading the 7-day mean temperatures, the month started near normal, but cooled to unusually low figures by the end of the first week – five degrees down! For a week from the 19th it was only two degrees below normal, then back to four degrees down at the end of the month.
Days were particularly cool, running about 29° instead of 33°.  However, the coolest days were not extreme.
The warmest day, Friday the 22nd, reached only 35.5°. The following morning was the warmest at 26.1°.
Dry air arrived from the south on the 24th, with a Dew Point of only 5.8°.
Rain fell frequently until the 19th, with the 6th being the wettest day (32 mm). The 29th was also very wet. There were nine rain days, totalling 115.6 mm. This is nearly twice the long-term February average of 66 mm.
Very few mornings were “Fine” (with no cloud).

 Comparing February months

Climate February 2008

This was by far the coldest of the last nine Februaries, by day and by night. The mean daily maximum of 28.8°, the mean daily mean of 22.2°, and the mean daily minimum of 15.6° were all well below average, by 3.7°, 3.1°, and 2.5° respectively.
The contrast with the last two years is stark: the days in February 2007 were 4.5° hotter, and those in February 2006, 5.2° hotter than this month. (Note added: This cooling was global.)
With 58% of mornings exceeding 4 octas of cloud, this February, along with December 2007 (58%) and June 2007 (60%) was one of the cloudiest months in nine years. Most months in Manilla have about 30% cloudy mornings.

This month’s rainfall of 116 mm is in the 81st percentile of February totals. (Last February’s 128 mm was the seventeenth wettest February on record.) Taking rainfall totals for more than one month, every total up to 12 months is very high: above the 70th 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.

 

Fine cold days in July 2007

The daily weather logWeather log July 2007

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 monthsClimate July 2007

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.