Moree residents could tell this winter was a warm one, but now it's been confirmed - the past winter has been Moree's warmest in more than 110 years.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The average maximum temperature for June, July and August this year was 21.2 degrees, just below the record warm winter of 1907 which recorded a mean of 21.6 degrees.
In August alone, the average maximum temperature was 22.5 degrees - two degrees warmer than the August average of 20.5.
This follows Moree's third warmest July ever.
And while winter was one of the warmest, it was also one of the driest.
So far this year Moree has only received a total of 83 millimetres of rainfall, making it the driest first eight months of any year.
This breaks the previous record dry January to August of 1902, when less than 100mm fell by the end of August.
It's also the driest ever eight-month period over the past 140 years, since records began in 1879, according to retired CSIRO weather monitor Peter Nelson, who still regularly monitors Moree's weather records.
"The two previous very dry eight-month periods were 108mm from April to November 1888 and 119mm from April to November 1957," Mr Nelson said.
"Both of these two periods led to very high temperatures during late spring into early summer with temperatures peaking near 47 in early January."
Mr Nelson said this year Moree has experienced a number of long spells without any rain.
Moree is currently in the middle of the longest dry-spell this year, going on 54 days straight without rain.
Zero rainfall was recorded in August, and only 6.6mm was recorded over three days in July (July 8, 9 and 10). Prior to that, Moree had 22 days without rain.
In late January to mid-March there was a 45-day dry spell, with zero rainfall recorded in February. April also recorded zero rainfall, and throughout the rest of this year so far rainfall has been patchy with light showers here and there. The biggest fall recorded this year was March 17 when 21.4mm fell. March is so far the wettest month this year, with a total of 38.2mm recorded at Moree Aero.
According to Mr Nelson's long-range predictions, Moree won't be getting much relief from the dry until at least 2021.
He had expected Moree would get above-average rainfall in August, but that didn't eventuate, and now it looks as if December might provide some relief before another dry year in 2020.
"Not much joy is expected for 2020 either with another hot dry summer and that year basically dry," he said.
Mr Nelson predicts the drought will start to ease in 2021, with the possibility of a flood in February 2022.
"There'll be a fair bit of rain from 2021 to 2023 and more of the same in 2026 to 2027," he said.
"[For the drought to break] you've got to have at least one and a half to two times the average rainfall and it's got to be consistent over a few months."
Mr Nelson also expects Moree will experience floods in January/February 2026.
Looking ahead even further, Mr Nelson has predicted that the 13 years from 2030 to 2043 will be dominated by a sequence of wetter-than-average years.
