While it may be hard to believe considering the recent rain deluge that washed through Melbourne, our city has surprisingly broken a dry weather record. Typically, March marks the transition from summer to Melbourne's classic cool and rainy weather, but this year was an exception.
Last month was officially the driest March on record in Melbourne, with the city recording the smallest amount of rain in 170 years of weather data. Across the entire month, Melbourne only had a measly 2.8mm of rain. This is starkly low for a typical March, with the long-term monthly average in Melbourne being about 50mm. The last time our city had such low rainfall in March was 110 years ago, all the way back in 1934, when 3.7mm of rain fell. According to Weatherzone, the super low level of rain in Victoria last month was because of unusually high pressure towards the south of Australia, which blocked cold fronts that usually bring rainfall.
Across the state, the weather was still summer-like in March, with a scorching heatwave over the Labour Day long weekend. But Victoria's weather was in stark contrast to the rest of the country, as locations in the Northern Territory and Western Australia recorded the wettest March on record. In fact, Australia's national area-averaged rainfall in March 2024 was 86 per cent above the 1961-1990 average, which made it the third wettest March ever recorded for the whole country.
Down south, Melbourne seems to have gotten the rain memo, with the start of this month marking the wettest April day in 47 years, with a mammoth 53.2mm in 24 hours. You've got to hand it to our city's weather – it never does anything by halves.
It looks like the rain could be here to stay now, as weather forecasters predicted the La Niña weather pattern was due to return to Australia this year. So if you haven't already, it's time to dig out your raincoats and gumboots.
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