Dry weather comes to an end

Brief showers early this morning and later in the evening have helped to ease the relatively dry start to the year in Sydney. With the first 20 days of the year completed, it's actually the driest start to a year at Sydney Airport since 1965. The current rainfall for the month stands at only 3.0mm, 1.8mm of which fell today. In 1965 only 2.7mm had fallen at the same point.

If we look at how rainfall accumulated during each January in the 10 year period between 2004 and 2013, plus the first 20 days of 2014, we get a graph like the one below.

Cumulative rainfall at Sydney Airport for each January during the period 2004-2014

The red line at the bottom of the graph representing 2014 is more than 15mm below 8 of the past 10 years. It's worth keeping in mind that the figures for 2004 to 2013 are measurements made during the 24 hour period to 9am on each respective date. 2014's results are based on 24 hour calendar day periods. The long term average rainfall for January is 94.6mm, so unless there are some heavy falls in the next week and a half, it looks unlikely for the monthly rainfall to get close to that mark.

Temperatures over the weekend were slightly below average. After 4 consecutive days above 30C, 25.5C and 26.2C might have been welcomed by some. The next few days should be a little cooler than average as well. During the next 7 days a maximum of only 26C is forecast. There will probably be some more rain around as well, although no significant falls are predicted. Of course, it's quite possible that heavy and isolated falls may occur during these periods of unsettled weather.

With the recent drop in temperatures, Jyväskylä has also been experiencing an extended dry spell. Of the first 9 days of the month, precipitation fell on 8. After that, in the 10 days of January 10 to 19, only 0.1mm was recorded on January 14. However, like Sydney, precipitation has been recorded in Jyväskylä today. 0.9mm had fallen by 5pm taking the monthly total to 12.2mm.

Temperatures defied the forecast once again on Saturday as -22.1C was recorded, the first day below -20C for the winter. You have to go all the way back to March 22 last year to find the previous instance. The minimums from Sunday and today followed Saturday's example, dropping to -23.0C and -23.2C respectively. Saturday January 18 also took the lowest daily maximum of the month so far with a top of -14.7C.

As it was a few days ago, a similar combination of cold temperatures and sun looks set to continue for the time being.