September 2008 Statistics

Month's Summary Sept 2008

Maleny Weather Station

September in Maleny	2008	2007
Rainfall	141.0 mm	239 mm
Rain Days	8 days	7 days
Maximum 24 hr rain	108.4 mm	77.2 mm
Heaviest Rate of Fall	164.6 mm/hour	70.4 mm/hour
Thunder heard	2	3
Evapotranspiration	86 mm	n/a
Relative Humidity (9am)	79%	70%
Relative Humidity (3.pm)	62%	57%
Lowest Min. Temperature	9.0ºC	9.0ºC
Highest Min. Temperature	15.8ºC	17.0ºC
Lowest Max. Temperature	17.2ºC	12.8ºC
Highest Max. Temperature	32.4ºC	30.2ºC
Days under 10ºC	3	7
Bright Sunshine Hours	197 hours	196 hours
Dom. Wind Direction	NW	N
MWS internet usage Hits	54837	67335
MWS internet usage Visits	3171	2985

The first Thursday of the month brought rain, torrential rain, as the heavens opened in the early hours. Especially welcome as the previous 40 days had been dry. It came to us from upper level troughs travelling on a NW cloudband from Central Australia. An interaction with a local low pressure system brought 125 mm of rainfall, and some strong winds gusting to 25 knots. We certainly needed the rain for gardens and paddocks, as well as near-dry water tanks.

A slow moving anticyclone in the Tasman Sea, extending a ridge of high pressure up the East Coast, dominated the hinterland weather for the next couple of weeks. Most of the activity was in the upper levels with troughs in a couple of NW cloudbands that gave potential for some good falls of rain. However, here on the Ranges we had only a splatter. Temperatures on Tuesday 16^th, soared to the upper twenties before plummeting by 10 degrees the following day.

The end of the month brought a mixed bag of weather due to instability in both the lower and upper levels of the atmosphere. The week started with two severe thunderstorm warnings issued by the Weather Bureau. They said the one on Sunday evening 21^st would reach Maleny at 9.05pm and bring structural damage. Thankfully, by the time it reached us it had spent all its energy.

Total September rainfall was 141 mm over eight rain-days, well above the average of 63 mm. Top temperature for the month was 32.4ºC on Monday 29^th This is the highest recorded at Maleny since September 1997 when the mercury soared to 33.2ºC