Wednesday’s weather in parts of Gannawarra shire resembled Melbourne’s famous multiple seasons in a day, with people enjoying the sunshine at local pools into the early hours of the afternoon, before thunder, lightning and rain arrived.
Although Kerang recorded 11mm of rain through until 9am yesterday morning, Cohuna’s rainfall was negligible at less than 1mm, while other parts of Gannawarra Shire experienced far more dramatic downpours.
Normanville mixed farmer Geoff Kendell recorded between 55-60mm.
“It puts sub soil moisture down for planting in May,” he said, noting the additional benefits of topping up depleted water tanks and watering the garden.
“A March break would have been fantastic,” Mr Kendell said, but he still sees plenty of postitives in Wednesday’s rain.
However, he indicated summer weeds will now spring to life, appreciating the generous drink, and will require spraying.
Dingwall mixed farmer Colin Fenton would also have preferred the rain to come a little later, but isn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth.
“It would be better if it was in another month or two months’ time, but any rain has got to have a benefit of some sort,” Mr Fenton said.
Lake Charm had up to 21mm near its general store, but the fickle nature of the weather was highlighted by the fact only 7mm was recorded by a farmer 10 kilometres north east of town.
Kerang’s more modest Wednesday rainfall still seemed abundant compared to just 3.7mm there for the rest of this month.
The town had a total of only 5.6mm of rain for the entire month of December last year.
While yesterday’s storm activity brought some relief from the heat, there wasn’t a dramatic drop in the temperature, which still hovered around the 28 degree mark in Kerang after the thunder and lightning subsided and calm was restored.
The overnight minimum was a moderate 17 degrees, following a couple of days in a row with minimums in excess of 20 degrees.
