FROSTY or foggy mornings have been quite regular in Wangaratta and district over the past week, reaffirming winter's cool start in the region.

Up to last Wednesday, mean maximum temperatures at Wangaratta, Benalla, Rutherglen, Albury and Yarrawonga were all around 13 degrees and were half to one degree below the June normal.

The mean minimum temperatures at all five centres were 1.0 to 1.8 degrees and were 1.5 to 2.0 degrees below the June normal due to more frosts than usual.

There were 12 frost days at Wangaratta and Rutherglen, 11 frost days at Benalla, nine frost days at Albury and six frost days at Yarrawonga.

Wangaratta had the lowest temperature of the major centres with a reading of minus 4.7 on Monday, 5 June and this was the lowest temperature for early June since minus 5.0 on Friday, 3 June, 2005.

Interestingly there was widespread heavy rain in Victoria and NSW more than a week later, and further rain during the fourth week of June 2005.

The first day of June to date was the warmest at all five major centres with a reading of 17 degrees.

The three alpine resorts did receive brief heavy snow falls but rainfall totals to date of 22.2mms at Falls Creek, 64.4mms at Mt Buller and 31mms at Mt Hotham were to date well below the June averages (Falls Creek 120mms below, Mt Buller 93mms below and Mt Hotham 94 mms below).

Rainfall totals at the major centres in North East Victoria to date were all around 45mms - about two thirds of the June average, although only 27mms had fallen at Yarrawonga.

Last week at Roma in Queensland there was a record long June sequence of heavy frosts with minimum temperature averaging minus 2.7 degrees - the coldest in 68 years of records - and this could delay any significant rainfall reaching our district until the end of June.