UNTIL Monday Ararat had never experienced two days of temperatures above 30 degrees within the first week of October.
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The heat arrived at the weekend with the temperature reaching 31 degrees on Saturday.
That was topped by Monday’s high of 34 degrees – the town’s warmest day since March 19.
The pair of days above 30 degrees makes it Ararat’s warmest start to October on record.
The town hadn't recorded a day of 30 degrees or above so early in the month since 2006.
Since 1969, the Bureau of Meteorology had never recorded two days of temperatures above 30 degrees within the first week of October in Ararat.
If Tuesday’s forecast of 32 degrees eventuates Ararat will have notched up not just two, but three days above 30 degrees within just the first six days of the month.
The hot start to October follows the warm and dry end to September.
We had a taste of summer mid-last month, a contrast to our August cold-snap.
The town’s average day-time maximum temperature (16.4) was 1.2 degrees above the long-term average (15.2) with a month-high 27.5 degrees recorded on September 14.
Minimum temperatures were 0.6 lower than normal and the mercury dropped below zero on two occasions (September 1 (-4.0) and September 29 (-1.5)).
Ararat recorded 50.4 millimetres of rain, 9.3mm short of the long-term average figure of 59.7mm.
The town has now recorded below-average rainfall in eight of the nine months so far in 2015.
Despite slightly exceeding its average rainfall total in May, Ararat has failed to reach mean totals in every other month.
Bureau of Meteorology senior hydrologist Dr Paul Feikemia said El Nino continues to strengthen and will persist into early 2016 before declining.
“Lower-layer soils between 10 centimetres and a metre below the surface have been left dry compared to long-term averages,” he said.
“The combination of dry soils and El Nino means the risk of heatwaves and bushfires is raised in many areas.”
The 2015/16 bushfire outlook for Southern Australia shows above normal fire potential for Western Victoria.
- The print version of this story contains factual inaccuracies due to an editing error. The Ararat Advertiser apologies for the error (Luke Horton, Editor).