The last month of winter was notably drier than average in North East Victoria.
August rainfall was only 21.8mms in Wangaratta, 26.6mms in Rutherglen, 22.4mms in Yarrawonga, 30.4mms in Benalla and 44.6mms in Albury.
All totals were generally less than half the August average - except 44.6mms at Albury - and represented the driest August since 2014, after which there were bursts of heavy rain and thunderstorms late in November and early December of 2014 and again in mid January 2015.
Both June and July this year were actually wetter than average at all five major North East centres and total rainfalls for the winter season include 171.6mms at Wangaratta, 169mms at Rutherglen, 169.4mms at Benalla, 123 mms at Yarrawonga and 173.8mms at Albury.
All totals were just short of the winter average.
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The heaviest rain was on 24 June as a result of thunderstorm activity.
Mean maximum temperatures were just over one degree above normal during this winter whilst mean minimum temperatures were just over one degree below normal.
Elsewhere, violent thunderstorms with heavy hail on 29 August brought heavy rainfalls to Mt Buller and Strathbogie.
At Mt Buller the August rainfall reached 240mms which was the wettest August since 2022.
Strathbogie, which had its driest January to May period for 105 years, recorded above average rainfall for all the three winter months this year and this also happened during the winter months of 1920.
The records show that September and October 1920 were wet months in Victoria.
Sydney has completed its wettest winter with 567mms since 2007, as well as the wettest August with 389mms since 1998.
The total rainfall this year in Sydney has reached 1371mms, surpassing the annual average of 1219mms.
Very heavy rainfall at Port Macquarie with floods during August has takes its year to date total to 2018mms - a massive 500mms above the annual average of 1515mms. Interestingly, the very wet years at both Sydney and Port Macquarie in 1950, 1990 and 2022 did lead to notably warmer and wetter conditions in Victoria from September right through to February with a high frequency of thunderstorms.
