Following the lowest MSL pressures for July of 1014mbs in Melbourne since 1996, the first fortnight of August has seen a remarkable rise of more than 10mbs to 1025.7mbs. This has resulted in rainfalls being well below average in Victoria. Wangaratta only had 4.4mms to August 14, the driest since 1948. In the first fortnight of this month Benalla only recorded 7.6mms which is the driest August since 2006, while Yarrawonga with 3.8mms has had its driest start since 2014. Frosts have occurred on 12 of the days resulting in mean minimum temperatures being the coldest since 2006 and before that in 1994. The records do show that there was a big rise of MSL pressures from July to the first fortnight of August in the same year on only four previous occasions in the last 165 years - 1887, 1995, 1998 and 2014. The first three led to excessive rainfalls in Victoria and NSW for the rest of the year into January. Sydney had 206mms rainfall for the first fortnight of August, its wettest since 311mms in 1998. Other very wet first fortnights of August in Sydney were in 1990, 1986, 1952, 1861 and 1860. All these generally led to unsettled and wet conditions right up to January the following year. Canberra with only 1.6mms for the first fortnight of August was the driest since 2007 after which the rest of 2007 was somewhat warmer and wetter than normal. Sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean have been notably above normal for most of this year and does look set to continue resulting a further increase in rainfalls in our regions.
