THE month of April has delivered very good rainfall to the Southern Grampians region, with some areas north of Hamilton even showing a record.

Hamilton received 72.4 millimetres of rain with the average for April since records began in 1878 being 52.4mm, but way short of the highest of 130mm set in 1923.

Overall rainfall for the year so far is above average, with the mean total 156.7mm and the 2023 running total of 191.4mm about 22 per cent higher.

Daytime temperatures were below average with maximums about 1.5 degrees Celsius down to 18.4 degrees but increased overnight cloud cover played a part in minimum temperatures being 9.2 degrees, which is 0.8 degrees higher than average.

However, it was the region to the north around Balmoral that had even more rainfall, with a total of 86.4mm setting a record, although the official data only goes back 20 years.

The previous record was 68.2mm set in 2017.

The Bureau of Meteorology has been forecasting the rains to ease, with the chance of exceeding the three-month average rainfall for May to July being only about 20 per cent for the Southern Grampians region.