North East Victoria faces heatwave after coldest start to December since 1987

By Peter Nelson The dry conditions of the past spring months in North East Victoria have continued for the first 10 days of December with rainfalls to date of 14mms in Wangaratta, 13mms in Rutherglen, 6mms in Benalla and only 3mms in Yarrawonga. After the coldest start to December since 1987, the first very hot days arrived on Friday, 5 December with readings of 38.7 degrees Celsius at Wangaratta, 39.6 degrees Celsius at Rutherglen, 38.1 degrees Celsius at Benalla and 39.9 degrees Celsius at Yarrawonga. These were the highest readings for 5 December recorded in the whole of Victoria except for 40.4 degrees Celsius at Swan Hill . Wangaratta took the prize with the strongest wind gust of 113 kmh from the WNW at 7.40pm on Friday, 5 December. Alpine resorts recorded the strongest wind gusts between 90 and 110 kmh on Friday, 5 December. It was Wangaratta's strongest wind gust on record for December and in fact the strongest gust recorded in the whole of Victoria on 5 December. Following excessive rainfalls this year in Sydney up to mid September it has become remarkably dry during October and November with only 70 mms rainfall recorded. Other very dry October and November periods in Sydney which followed heavy rainfalls earlier did happen in 1859, 1867, 1951, 1962 and 2016. All led to a notably hotter summer in Victoria and also in South Australia, NSW and outback QLD with late rainfalls by February and heavy rainfalls March and April. Dubbo recorded a maximum temperature of 42.2 degrees Celsius on Saturday, 6 December the highest for early December since 2019 and before that in 1951. There were fierce heatwaves in mainly NSW and Victoria during the summers of 1951-52 and 2019-20 with temperatures topping 46 degrees and widespread bushfires. The current synoptic weather shows a big heat low sitting over inland WA which could even bring a brief burst of rain by mid December if it pushes into the Bight and picks up some moisture.

North East Victoria faces heatwave after coldest start to December since 1987

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