Hot November sets new record

Bunbury sweated through the start of November when the highest average temperature in 22 years was recorded.

The city averaged a maximum temperature of 27C for the month up to Monday, which is almost three degrees higher than the monthly average.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, it was hottest first 27 days of November since records began in 1995.

BOM senior climatologist Glenn Cook said the hot weather was due to the absence of cold fronts that were normally felt this month.

“There were very few cold fronts moving up from the South West,” Mr Cook said.

“Even at this time in late spring you expect one or two cold fronts to move through. With that you see southerly winds and therefore cooler temperatures.

“We have seen little of that this month, particularly in the first half of the month. It has sort of gone back to normal in the second half and will finish with a cool end to November.”

Bunbury has a total rainfall of 8.8mm so far this month, well below the average of 22.9mm.

“Bunbury has only had two days of rain for the month,” he said.

“While on average you would see about six rain days.

“This goes back to the lack of cold fronts.

“If there is no rain in the final three days it would equal the lowest number of rain days for the current site. Which was also recorded last year and another three times.”

Mr Cook said the temperatures for the South West had been above average for the first 11 months of the year.

“The average for the region has been 22.5C across the whole region,” he said.

“Normally it is approximately 21.9C.”

Mr Cook said it may not look like a big difference, but across a long period of time it had an impact.

“Being 0.6C of a degree average is reasonably significant,” he said.

“This is an accumulation across 11 months, so you would have to look at what has occurred.”