Autumn weather a mixed bag

By Monique Preston

May 31, 2023

Change of seasons: Enjoying the autumn leaves this week were Guthrie St Prep students Syrus Keenan, Abigail Martin, Jewel Clarke, Maeve Sloan, Harry Powles, Kaitlyn Futter, Max Thomson and Hunter Groves. Photo by Rechelle Zammit

With the start of winter now upon us, a look back at autumn reveals a mixed bag of weather.

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March saw temperatures a smidge warmer, but far wetter, than the average over the past 26 years.

In April, Shepparton saw slightly cooler days but warmer nights than normal.

There was also just a little bit more rain than usual for the month.

May, however, saw colder days and nights than normal, and rainfall figures were also slightly down on the historical average.

Data from the Bureau of Meteorology showed March’s mean daytime maximum temperature in Shepparton to be 28.3ºC, just above the long-term average of 27.5ºC.

The mean night-time temperature for the month was 13.5ºC, just one degree higher than the historical average for the month.

Figures showed 53.2mm of rain for the month — 20mm more than the historical average of 32.5mm.

The most rain for the month came in the 24 hours until 9am on March 24, when 27.8mm fell, causing flash flooding across parts of town.

April saw a mean maximum daytime temperature of 21.7ºC.

This is slightly lower than the historical mean maximum temperature for April of 22.6ºC.

The mean night-time minimum temperature for the month was 9ºC, only 0.3ºC higher than the historical mean.

This year Shepparton received 45.8mm of rain for the month, 8.8mm more than usual for April.

May brought cooler days and nights than usual.

The mean daytime temperature was 16.5ºC, compared to the historical average for the month of 17.6.

The warmest day saw the mercury peak at 21.3ºC on May 14, while the coldest was 13.3ºC on May 27.

This year’s May average night-time temperature was 4.8ºC — some 0.8ºC cooler than usual for this time of year.

May this year also saw a total of 27.2mm of rain, with rain falling on nine separate days.

The highest day of rainfall saw 9.6mm on May 26.

The historical average May rainfall in Shepparton over the past 26 years is 34.1mm, 6.9mm higher than this year’s average.

However, the Bureau of Meteorology also shows that the May used to be much wetter in the area, with an average of 55.5mm of rain in the years between 1965 and 1996 when the gauge was at Campbell’s Soup in Lemnos.