AFTER a brief dry spell, the heavens opened with a vengeance across the South West on Sunday, with rainfall of up to 57 millimetres in just a few hours, recorded at locations around the South West and causing damage to buildings.
The Casterton Pharmacy team had a rude shock turning up for work on Monday, finding 15 panels of the store’s floating ceiling collapsed under the weight of water and damage to stock, shop fittings and displays.
“It made a pretty big mess, taking us until about (9.45am) to make the shop safe to walk through,” pharmacy manager, Kane Forbes said.
“We just manned the front of the shop, greeting and serving customers there and by 10am people were able to come in.
“There’s a floating roof, particle board, that makes up the ceiling and we can’t really see any damage to the main roof, so we’re just waiting for a plumber to come to find out what actually cause the water to come in.”
At the Casterton Bowling Club, play was abandoned after the green became inundated, nearing the end of game one in the club’s doubles championships.
Water, water everywhere
THE weekend’s storm was a fitting end to the 2021/2022 summer, where Victoria saw a few rainfall and temperature records broken and extremes not seen in the past century, hit the state.
Bureau of Meterology records for the middle of summer show Victoria recorded its eighth-wettest January on record – the highest since 2011 - and had 91 per cent higher rainfall than the long-term average and nighttime temperatures were the warmest on record across most of the state.
The bureau reported a low-pressure trough over Victoria on the 4 and 5 January brought a humid tropical air-mass and severe thunderstorms, heavy rainfall and damaging winds which impacted parts of the state, including several locations in the South West.
Showers and isolated thunderstorms developed in Victoria's southern central parts with the highest daily rainfall totals of 97.4 mm recorded to 9am on 5 January at Mount Cowley (Lorne).
More thunderstorms developed across Victoria on the 6 and 7 January and again on the 14th and 15th, when deep low-pressure troughs moved slowly westward over the state.
A slow-moving high-pressure system over the southern Tasman Sea directed a warm and humid north-easterly airflow over Victoria around Australia Day, with thunderstorms - some severe – developing over parts of the state, with strong winds, lightning, hail, heavy rainfall and flash flooding.
The highest daily rainfall total recorded in Victoria this January was 130.0 millimetres at Indigo in the state’s northeast on January 30, however many sites had their highest January daily rainfall on record and some had new records for their monthly totals, including several sites that have more than 100 years of measurements.
The wettest place in Victoria in January was Harrietville (Ovens River), with 286.6 mm recorded during the month - nearly four-times its January average.
Victoria heating up
STATE-wide, the mean minimum temperature for January was 3.65 °C above the long-term average, making it the highest on record for January and night-time temperatures were the warmest on record for most of Victoria.
Many sites had their highest January mean daily minimum temperature on record, while Ballarat Aerodrome, Cape Otway Lighthouse and Maryborough had their highest January mean daily minimum temperature since 1908.
Daytime temperatures were warmer to much warmer than average in the central and western parts of the state and for the state as a whole, the mean maximum temperature was 1.88 °C warmer than the long-term January average.
According to the bureau, the month started with high temperatures across most of Victoria, in a warm northerly airstream and a low-intensity heatwave affected Victoria between the 20th and 28th with state-wide daily maximum and minimum temperatures 5 to 10 degrees above the January average.
Locally, Portland had its highest January mean daily maximum temperature on record and several sites in Central and Western Victoria reported record number of consecutive days with daily maximum temperatures equal or above 30.0 °C, including Hamilton Airport.
The Victorian mean temperature was 2.77 °C warmer than the long-term average, the 5th warmest January on record.
Fires and flash floods
HUMIDITY was above the January average, with the bureau reporting afternoon vapour pressure “very much above average” for the month across most Victoria and areas of highest on record in the state’s south.
There were reports of flooding in Ballarat and surrounding areas on 5 January and four-centimetre hail was reported near Creswick, north of Ballarat.
Multiple fires broke out across Victoria on the 26th, ahead of thunderstorms, with firefighters responding to blazes west of Bendigo around Barkly, Natte Yallock, Timor West and Raywood.
Thunderstorms brought heavy rain and flash flooding to Western Victoria on the 26th.
On the 27th and 28th, thunderstorms brought strong winds, heavy rainfall and flash flooding to the western and central parts of the state, extending to south-eastern and north-eastern parts of the state.
Thousands of properties across Victoria were left without power between the 26th and 29th due to the intense thunderstorm activity.
Locals join ‘Twosday’ list
CASTERTON and Dartmoor also made history with the Bureau of Meterology on 22 February - 22/02/2022.
The date is significant because it’s both a palindrome and an ambigram.
A palindrome is when a number or word reads the same backwards such as the date 11/11/11 and an ambigram is when a word or number reads the same upside down (picture in a digital format).
Depending on how you write them, recent palindromic dates also fell on 21/02/2012, 1/1/11 and 11/11/11.
Casterton and Dartmoor were officially recorded in the bureau’s exclusive list of ‘Twosday winners’ last Tuesday, after being two of just 14 locations across Victoria recording temperatures of 22 degrees Celsius at 2.22pm, on that date.
