Warm and dry July expected

Bunbury residents may have noticed more rainfall and colder temperatures in the last week of June, but the month as a whole was no colder or wetter than normal.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, Bunbury had a drier and warmer June than normal and that was likely to continue through to July, despite the city’s recent bursts of rain and cold snaps.

Bureau duty forecaster Catherine Schelfhout said in the 24 hours from 9am on Friday to 9am on Saturday, a total of 28mm of rain had fallen in Bunbury. Nearby at Myalup, 49.4mm of rain had fallen in the same period.

She said even though a substantial amount of rain had fallen at the weekend, June had seen less rainfall due to most of the month being drier than normal.

For the whole month of June, 61.8mm of rain was recorded, less than half the average of 135.6mm.

The average rainfall for the year-to-date is also substantially less than normal for this time of the year.

Ms Schelfhout said the total amount of rain recorded in Bunbury to July 3 was 250.6mm, compared to the average for the same timeframe of 326mm.

While the last week of June saw more rain, it also saw a drop in temperatures with the coldest day recorded overnight last Wednesday at 1.8C.

However, Ms Schelfhout said as a whole, the month was warmer than a normal June.

The average maximum temperature for June is 18.4C and the average minimum is 8C. Last month the mean maximum temperature reached 20.2C and the mean minimum dropped to 6.9C.

Ms Schelfhout said July was expected to be warmer and drier than normal but those conditions were not likely to be noticeable until next week at the earliest, with more rain and cold snaps expected this week.

“We are starting to see more typical cold fronts coming through,” Ms Schelfhout said.

“It looks like warm and dry conditions in July,” she said.