Finally some rain on the way for Sydney

A band of rain pushed north east through New South Wales this evening. There haven't been any significant recordings just yet in Sydney, but totals as high as 40mm might be seen in locations around the city up until Sunday. Locations south west and west of city, like Goulburn and Bathurst, received the highest falls this evening. 11.6mm had fallen at Goulburn Airport by midnight, while Bathurst Airport's 3.8mm was its highest daily total since December 26 last year.

Just before midnight yesterday showers swept across Sydney dropping a few millimetres. Sydney Airport only received a total of 1.0mm, but Observatory Hill recorded 3.6mm. Including today, the Airport has only recorded 1.8mm this month, compared to 9.2mm at Observatory Hill and 3.2mm at Penrith, so rain will be a welcome relief from the dry conditions.

After Monday's cooler temperatures, the last 3 days have been warmer. Today's top of 29.8C was the warmest of the 3. Yesterday saw the highest monthly minimum set once again. It only dropped as low as 22.3C.

The extreme weather experienced in Australia's south east recently was further highlighted in a post made on the Bureau of Meteorology's Facebook page on Tuesday. Records have been broken across South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory as a result of the heat. Using measurements up until February 11, the following statistics presented by BoM are quite interesting.

• Melbourne's had 7 days of 40C or above; annual average is 1 day
• Adelaide's had 11 days of 42C or above; annual average is 1 day
• Canberra's had 19 days of 35C or above; annual average is 5.4 days

Rain is likely to fall across most of the south east of the country in the coming days, so hopefully those areas that are in desperate need of rain receive some good falls.