Those people going around saying, 'This is the most rain we've ever had!' were not exaggerating. The Southeast Fire Centre is reporting that June saw the greatest amount of precipitation experienced during any month since local records began in 1966. With 227.7mm of rain, June 2012 is the wettest June by 350 per cent, crushing the previous record of 117.7mm from 2005. The previous greatest total monthly amount of precipitation was 195.1mm from December of 1966.
"The normal amount of rain for the month is 65.7mm," said Ron Lakeman, weather forecaster for the Southeast Fire Centre. "It's the greatest amount of rain in the month of June. It's also the greatest amount of precipitation of any month since we began recording in the mid-60's."
Lakeman said that there has been several factors contributing to the excessive rain.
"It's relatively common to get a number of significant weather systems in the month of June," he said. "It's twofold here - the amount of rain that's come with these systems and a near endless procession of systems. As to the bigger question of the cause of the whole thing - that's up for dispute. I can't really come up with anything as to why it happened. The systems that came through were noteworthy in the sense that they brought up what I call 'concentrated surges of moisture'. If we look back to the weekend of the 23/24. Starting on the Friday night we had some thundershowers that produced 20mm of rain. Saturday late morning/early afternoon we had another 38mm in the span of about five hours. That following Tuesday we had another about 20mm. The abnormality if you will is the amount of rain that came in those short spans were so heavy. Those weren't the only systems of note either. There was one at the beginning of June and one towards the end of the month."
The number of days with measurable precipitation this month equalled the previous high for June of 23 from 1981.
Unsurprisingly, temperatures were also significantly cooler than normal. The average daily high temperature was 3.2 degrees cooler than normal. This is coolest maximum monthly temperature during June since 1991. Record daily mean minimum temperatures (the coolest average daily temperature) were recorded on the 6, 7, 9, and 26.