FOLLOWING an active cold front last Monday evening which brought only 1.4mms of rainfall to Wangaratta, maximum and minimum temperatures fell below the October normal over most of Victoria and heavy frosts were experienced in North East Victoria to Wednesday morning. Wangaratta had a minimum temperature of 1.7 degrees Tuesday morning and 3.7 degrees on Wednesday. Omeo recorded minus 2.8 degrees, which was its coldest October morning since minus 3.7 degrees in 2006. Other colder readings were in 1965, 1970, 1978, 1990 and 1994. Mt Buller had a heavy snowfall with the temperature falling to minus 5.7 degrees which was not as cold as minus 7.6 degrees in October 1988. To date the rainfall this month at Wangaratta and nearby towns is barely a quarter of the October average and and heavy significant rainfall is now not expected until about November 22. The latter part of October is likely to see hotter days to about 33 degrees and near 35 degrees to 38 degrees during the second week of November. Rutherglen to date has received only 2.4 mms rainfall, the driest to this point since 2006. And looking forward to the third week of October there will be little or no rain. Currently pressure gradients on the synoptic weather charts are very weak. The centres of low pressures are around 1005 mbs and for high centres around 1020 mbs. For any useful amount of rainfalls to occur low pressure centres this time of year need to be much deeper - at 995 mbs and the high centers 1025 mbs or higher. Maximum temperatures now will become progressively higher reaching about 33 degrees by October 22.
