It was a wet weekend for Victoria with a low-pressure system bringing showers to all districts. Thunderstorms developed about the northeast ranges Friday afternoon and again across eastern Victoria on Saturday afternoon. Mount Hotham recorded 112.2 mm over the two days. Widespread rainfall is expected again later this week.
October is on track to be wetter than average across Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania. And central and eastern New South Wales are likely to catch up on their October rainfall this weekend.
November is looking wetter than average across most of the mainland. For Victoria, the highest chances of above average monthly rainfall are across the north, with only slightly increase chances for the far southwest.
The long-range outlook for November 2020 to January 2021 shows a greater than 80% chance of above average rainfall across parts of southern New South Wales spilling over into northern and eastern Victoria. At the same time days are likely to be warmer than average across the southern half of the state with no strong push towards higher or lower maximum temperatures for the north. Meanwhile, minimum temperatures are very likely (greater than 80% chance) to be higher than usual across almost the whole country.
Root zone soil moisture is above average to very much above average (in the highest 10% of records) across parts of southern central, south-west, and the north-west Victoria. Soil moisture is still below average for parts of Central Gippsland but further east it is average to above average. Root zone soil moisture is close to average for October across most of northern Victoria.
Dam levels continued to rise across south-eastern Australia during the past month. As of 20 October, water storages in the Murray-Darling Basin are 59.8% full, up 19.1% on the same time last year. For the South East Coast division which covers southern Victoria, water storages are 45.9% full, having risen 6.3% over the last year. And Melbourne's water storages are 74.1% full compared to 63.3% at the same time last year (latest data 21 October).
Above average rainfall over eastern Australia is typical when the Pacific is in a La Niña phase. Climatologists at the Bureau of Meteorology use their own computer model to forecast for La Niña but they also look at what other country's models are saying too. Currently the international models are telling us that La Niña will probably last through summer (until at least February).