By ROGER ROWSWELL
The rainfall was good for the first 10 days of January with one deluge of 30mm. Thereafter, dribs and drabs brought the total to 54.2mm over 10 rain days. This is short of both the LTA (65.6mm) and the LT Med (66.2mm).
This tallies with Jim Cambray’s recorded 54.4mm of rain for January 2022 in Park Road.
January rainfall has ranged from 30mm (2014) to 129.3mm (2020). January is the only month that the total has not exceeded 150mm in a year.
Last year, 2021, we looked at comparing the monthly rainfalls against the Old Gaol 1922 data hoping we were in for our 99 year cycle deluge. It didn’t happen.
This was based on the fact that the deluges of 1823 and 1922 had a 99 year interval. The hypothesis was also based on the ±99 year low of the sunspot cycle to which the two previous events coincided. Like all things in nature there are few hard and fast patterns. So out of interest we will compare this year’s monthly rainfalls with the same data as last year to see if there is a trend.
The ONI data for November and December 2021 are available and both months have registered at -1.0 which confirms a La Nina phase from August until the present. This bodes well for some good rain in the coming few months of our summer/early autumn wet season.
