A rain bearing system brought a much-needed soaking over the weekend – which even took Mudgee’s August total over the average of the month – but did little to dent the long-term deficit.
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From late on Friday showers and thunderstorms worked their way through parched parts of NSW and Queensland, before the eagerly awaited rain event slowly shifted east during on Sunday.
The 24-hour period ending at 9am on Sunday saw 17mm of rain recorded at the Mudgee Airport weather station, making it the wettest in the area since March (28.8mm on the 26th).
Which was followed by 9.8mm prior to Monday morning, for a total of 26.8mm.
This took the monthly total to 39.6mm, which also makes it the wettest August for Mudgee since 2011.
Gulgong had the wettest weekend of the Mid-Western Region with the Post Office weather station recording 29.4mm.
While the Nullo Mountain location in the Rylstone/Kandos area had a total of 21.2mm.
However, these totals did little to make up the shortfall for the January-to-August amounts at the various weather stations.
Mudgee has recorded 266.8mm from 2018 so far, when the area collects an average of 411.1mm eight months into the year.
Gulgong is 173.7mm short of what they would normally have by August. And at 371.6mm Nullo Mountain well off their average of 639.2mm.
The Bureau of Meterology don’t predict much more relief either, with their outlook released on August 16 showing September and October are likely to be drier than average for most of northern, eastern and southern Australia.
As of Monday afternoon, the forecast shows that showers are possible for Friday but only 1-5mm is predicted.
Rain on walk is hard to begrudge
Even though the rain happened to coincide with the 2018 Unity Walk in the Park [pictured] - a fundraising supporting people with Parkinson’s – it wasn’t something the walkers complained about.
Fervent members of the Mid-Western Parkinson’s Support Group walked on regardless of the conditions on Sunday afternoon.
Online donations to the local walk are still being accepted (until November) at https://unity2018.everydayhero.com/au/june