It's been a month of all seasons for Parkes residents so far this August, with some good rain, a few frosts and pleasantly warm winter days.
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It has been a rather wet one, with only four days this month having zero rain.
The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has recorded 42.8mm of rain at the Parkes Airport over the first 17 days this month.
The biggest downpour has been 13.8mm between 9am on Friday and 9am Saturday.
A total of 17.6mm has fallen in Parkes this weekend, according to the BoM, since 9am Friday.
August 7 has been the second highest with 9.8mm, the same day 78km/h winds were recorded at 12.46pm causing a little destruction in Hill Street.
Not surprisingly it's a huge comparison to August last year, which had only recorded 14.2mm for the month and the highest daily total was 7.4mm.
In 2018 all of August had 17.8mm, and in 2017, 25.6mm.
This August has also had a chilly start, with five days out of the first six in the minuses.
Our coldest day has been -4.2 degrees on August 5, almost two degrees warmer than the town's record of -6 on August 4 in 1999.
But since then, it's been rather pleasant, with our warmest day so far coming in at 19.1 degrees on August 13.
Our average lowest daily temperature for this August is 3.1 degrees at the moment.
August last year was a lot cooler, with 19 out of the 31 days in the minuses and its coldest day at -4.5.
The average lowest daily temperature was -0.3.
Strangely last year's warmest August day equalled the record at 25 degrees on August 18 - the same as August 23 in 2009 and August 30, 2007.
Overall 2019 was a rather cold year, with the lowest temperature for six consecutive months - from May to October - being between -1 and -4.5.
July this year has also had some decent rainfall, tallying 67mm for the month and again a big improvement on last July's total of 14.2mm, July 2018's 2mm and July 2017's 8.2mm.
Last month's wettest day was July 26 with 22.8mm of rain and BoM readings show 11 days out of 31 had no rain.
July's coldest day was July 17 at -2.1 degrees and its warmest was July 24 at 17.9 degrees.
The average lowest daily temperature for July this year was 2.8 degrees, almost the same as last July (2.7).
July 2019's chilliest day was -2.9 on July 29 and its warmest, a little higher than this year, was 21.4 degrees.
Christine Little
I love sharing people's stories, particularly local stories that are special and important to the people of Parkes. If there is one thing I have learnt in my 10 years of community journalism, it's that stories are everywhere. All it takes is a good story teller to make it worth reading. Email: christine.little@parkeschampionpost.com.au
I love sharing people's stories, particularly local stories that are special and important to the people of Parkes. If there is one thing I have learnt in my 10 years of community journalism, it's that stories are everywhere. All it takes is a good story teller to make it worth reading. Email: christine.little@parkeschampionpost.com.au
