Weather whiplash: Rain brings region relief after heatwave

As the region sweltered through the last seven days of January in 40-plus degree heat that for some broke monthly records, two weeks later the weather back-flipped and gave us a soaking. For some areas the rain over the weekend was as much as 30 times higher than what they received in all of January last month. Like Grenfell and Young, which only had 1mm and 1.6mm respectively in January. The Cherry Capital was blessed with the biggest downpour over the weekend and within a 24-hour period – it’s airport rain gauge recording 52.8mm falling in 14 hours to 9am Sunday. In the same time Grenfell received 36mm, Cowra received 24.4mm, Forbes 21.8mm and Orange 20.4mm. Parkes recorded 11.6mm but had a good 8.2mm 24 hours prior to that. Up until 9am on Monday, some areas were lucky to get more, with Forbes tallying another 13.6mm of rain to bring its monthly total for February so far to 39.2mm (at time of print). That’s 11 times more rain than Forbes had in all of January this year at 3.4mm. Dubbo received 39mm Monday morning, Peak Hill that’s north of Parkes had 11.2mm, Orange got 8mm, and Cowra received 8.6mm taking its total for February so far to 37.2mm, well above what the town received in all of January (9.6mm). Parkes recorded 2.8mm by Monday morning and its total is now at 26.6mm (at time of print), more than double its January total of 11.8mm. Coincidentally Grenfell and Young saw an additional 1mm and 1.6mm respectively on Monday. It was all certainly a welcome relief to the conditions we were trying to avoid just a fortnight ago, a relentless heatwave. Most of the region’s towns experienced seven-straight days of temps into the 40s, some days mid-40s, from 25 January to the end of the month. Forbes endured two of those days at 44 degrees, one at 45.2 on Australia Day and the last day of the month, breaking the town’s January record by 0.3 of a degree at 46 degrees. Dubbo instead had eight days of 40-plus degree temperatures, Australia Day was their highest at 46.1. Peak Hill recorded its hottest January day in 60 years when the mercury peaked at 45.8 degrees on Australia Day and 45.3 on 31 January, surpassing the town's previous January record of 45 degrees in 2020. It was a fraction cooler at Cowra with its hottest day being 44.9 degrees on 28 January and the hottest on record for January for the town in 21 years, beating the previous record from 2013 by just 0.1 of a degree. The Parkes Airport recorded 44.3 degrees on the last day of the month, what was only 0.5 of a degree away from the January record for Parkes of 44.8 degrees from 2020. Young peaked at 43.9 degrees on 28 January and was just one degree away from breaking their all-time high in 2020 on their 34-year record. Grenfell climbed to 43.3 degrees on 28 January, not the highest on record for January but only 0.7 of a degree short of it. During the heatwave Orange never got to 40-degree temps like the rest of us, the closest they came to was 38.8 degrees on 28 January. While scorching, the highest temperatures did not surpass their town’s all-time highs, which all except for Grenfell and Young were recorded on 11 February, 2017: 46.7 degrees in Forbes, 46 in Peak Hill, 45.9 in Parkes and 45.7 in Cowra. Grenfell’s hottest temperature on its 60-year record is 44 degrees, recorded both in December 2019 and January 2020. Young was in January 2020 too at 44.9.