White Box at Sunset
In this month, each of five sunny spells of normal temperature was followed by a cold, cloudy, humid break, generally with rain. Only a few days were warmer than normal, including the 27th. That was the first 30° day of the season, five weeks late.
The average weekly temperature was persistently three or four degrees cooler than normal. One cold week about the 15th was more than five degrees below normal, and the warmest week, about the 29th, was still half a degree low.
Most nights were very cool. I recorded no frosts, but others may have done. My most recent frost was early in September.
There were six rain days, not counting two readings of 0.2 mm. The highest reading was 20.0 mm on the 23rd.
Comparing October months
This was the coldest October on this record from 1999. That includes not only the maximum, mean, and minimum air temperatures read in the Gill Screen, but also the subsoil temperature at 750 mm. Noting that October 2015 had the highest October temperatures, the sudden collapse is astonishing. Last October was three degrees warmer than normal; this month was almost three degrees colder than normal. Put another way, the seasonal warming is a month late this year and was a month early last year.
Unlike September, there was not an unusual amount of moisture in October. Humidity, cloudiness and daily temperature range were near normal.
The monthly rainfall total of 72.1 mm was above the average of 58 mm, in the 70th percentile.
I have discussed the current drought status (that is, drought-free) in another post.
Data. Rainfall figures are usually from the automatic rain gauge at Manilla, published on the internet by the Bureau of Meteorology as Station 55031. However, the gauge ceased recording on the 8th of October, and later readings are from my non-standard gauge. All other data, including subsoil at 750 mm, are from 3 Monash Street, Manilla.
climate by surly 