Seymour faced wettest October on record

By Bianca Hall

Nov 15, 2022

Record-breaking: The swathes of dark blue show much of Victoria has experienced its wettest October on record. Photo: Bureau of Meteorology

Seymour received its highest October rainfall on record last month, with falls of more than 100mm above the previous high soaking the town.

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A total of 276.6mm of rain was recorded at the Goulburn River weather station in Seymour, more than five times the average October recording of 52.8mm.

The Goulburn River Seymour weather station has been open since 2001. The previous highest October rainfall was 164.4mm in October 1949, recorded at the Seymour Shire Depot weather station.

The record rainfall was due in part to record daily rainfall of October 12 and 13 which contributed to Seymour’s floods.

October 2022 was the wettest October on record for Victoria, NSW and the Murray-Darling Basin.

For Australia as a whole, October rainfall was the second-highest on record.

La Niña in the tropical Pacific Ocean and a negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) have contributed to the wet conditions in 2022.

Despite the heavy rainfall last month, there has been a trend of decline in rainfall of about 12 per cent in April to October in Australia’s south-east since the late 1990s.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, this decline is projected to continue, especially in the cooler half of the year.