The lengthy warm and dry spell plaguing Illawarra farmers has seen July weather records rewritten.
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The Bureau of Meteorology’s latest weather snapshot, released on Wednesday, revealed July was the seventh consecutive month of below average rainfall across NSW as a whole.
Last month was also the state’s driest July since 2002, with a number of locations – including two Illawarra weather stations – registering their lowest monthly rainfall on record.
Just 1.6 millimetres of rain was tipped out of the bureau’s Bellambi rain gauge in July – a meagre two per cent of the monthly average (73.3mm) and the site’s driest July in 22 years of records.
The 0.4mm recorded at the Darkes Forest (Kintyre) weather station was the driest July total in 122 years.
No rainfall records were broken at the bureau’s Albion Park weather station, despite last month’s total being just nine per cent of the July average.
However, records were rewritten when it came to cooler-than-normal nights and hotter-than-usual days.
Albion Park shivered through its record-lowest July temperature when the mercury dipped to -1.7 degrees on the 23rd; the coldest night in 20 years of records at the location.
The inland suburb also broke July records for coldest average daily minimum and warmest mean daily maximum temperatures.
Bellambi’s average daily maximum temperature last month of 18.6 degrees was the site’s warmest in 21 years of records and 1.6 degrees hotter than the long-term average.
JULY AT A GLANCE
Bellambi
- Hottest day: 6th (24.6°C)
- Coldest night: 15th (6.3°C)
- Wettest day: 13th (1mm)
- Total rainfall: 1.6mm
Albion Park
- Hottest day: 6th (25.7°C)
- Coldest night: 23rd (-1.7°C)
- Wettest day: 13th (3.2mm)
- Total rainfall: 4.6mm