Wintry blast

As round one winter sports played out across West Gippsland on the weekend, a wintry blast delivered 22 centimetres of snow at Mt Baw Baw.

More 30mm of rain was recorded for the weekend and icy temperatures made for true winter conditions and many home fires being lit and heating ramped up.

The highest temperature recorded at Nilma North Bureau of Meteorology weather station on the weekend was 15.1 degrees Celsius at 1.10pm on Saturday.  Sunday’s top was 12.7 degrees at 2pm, but the apparent temperature was 10.5, the only time of the day it cracked double figures.

The wintry conditions came after the first month of autumn delivered a rainfall total almost spot on to the 115-year average.

Rainfall recorded in Warragul for March totalled 64.8mm, slightly lower than the average of 65.1mm.

Rainfall for the first three months of the year is above average, with this month’s rainfall taking the year-to-date total to 191.4mm.

The average January to March rainfall is 175.6mm.

Rain was recorded on 14 days in March, with two bigger downfalls of 17.4mm on March 14 and 10.8mm on March 25.