LONGTERM RAINFALL AVERAGES

By Richard McGeachy

It’s been a while since I last updated the rainfall charts, mainly because for vineyards and orchards we’re
more interested in the rain not falling during harvest!

Suffice to say we’ve had a reasonable start to autumn, despite some very dry periods, with the combined
total for April and May being spot on the average. Roughly 40mm fell in the last week of May giving us a
much needed shove in the right direction.

The table below compares this season with the average of 1891 to 2009 as recorded in the Kay Brothers
Amery diary.
Table 1: Rainfall 2010 compared to longterm rainfall average.
September

November

December
Averages

February

October
January

August
March

Yearly
(mm)

April

June
May

July

1891-
2009 19.32 19.48 24.39 45.28 67.43 78.63 75.47 65.71 56.60 44.06 28.92 25.20 550.49
Longterm

2010 14.20 3.40 26.00 57.50 55.20 - - - - - - - 156.30

2010 vs
Longterm -5.12 -16.08 1.61 12.22 -12.23 - - - - - - -
Average
THE TREND FOR A DRY FEBRUARY!

When looking over the last four years weather data it is interesting to note that February rainfall over the
last four years has totaled just 8.4mm. The average over the last decade, 2000 to 2010 is 7mm below the
long term 120 year average of 19.48mm.

On three occasions in the last ten years no rainfall has been recorded for February – the last time this
occurred was in the 1950’s. Summers have indeed been dry which has put pressure on vines and olive tree
health.

Interestingly going back into the 1950’s I looked at the weather for 1959. This was the second driest year
on record (338.07mm) with just 168mm falling in the May to October period. The year 1959 was quite
similar to 2006 which lead into the disastrously low 2007 grape harvest which we all remember. We all
know how the vines were affected during the dry period of 2006 – but we have irrigation – there was no
such thing in 1959! Imagine the effect back then.

Table 2: Rainfall in 1959 compared to 2006.

September

November

December
February

May/Oct
October
January

August
March

Total
April

June
May

July

1959 2.03 27.94 37.85 7.62 10.92 7.11 38.10 49.53 37.34 25.40 24.38 69.85 338.1 168.4

2006 27.60 30.20 15.40 58.00 59.60 36.00 40.30 15.40 31.40 0.00 18.00 16.80 348.7 182.7

The yellow signifies the second lowest monthly rainfall and red is the lowest recorded since the Kay Bros Amery records began in 1891.