THE Bureau of Meteorology has confirmed initial indications that April has delivered some of the best rain in 20 years for some northern centres.
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Senior climatologist Acacia Pepler says among some new records set in this region in April were some significant ones when it came to rainfall.
They came as NSW overall recorded its wettest April in 25 years and its coolest April days since 1999.
Ms Pepler said Tamworth finished the month with 85.6mm of rain the wettest April since 1999, when it recorded 123mm.
"The record is 163.9mm in April 1905," Ms Pepler said.
At Moree, where the weather station recorded an official 78.6mm, it was the wettest April since 1990, when they had 132mm with the all-time April record a massive 241mm in 1988.
But a weather station at the property Oodnadatta at Moree actually reported 113mm for the month, compared to the previous best of nearly 85mm in 2003.
April also delivered some other records for northern centres when it came to precipitation. Guyra set a new record for daily April falls, with 49.6mm reported on April 4, about 1.5mm better than the previous one-day record set in 1983.
And a station at Inverell, in Raglan St, set a new monthly record for highest rainfall with nearly 105mm, the best for 12 years since the nearly 82mm received in 2003.
There were obviously some heavy falls during the month. The morning of Saturday, April 4, delivered some good totals across the region.
Armidale recorded nearly 36mm from the night before and into the Saturday morning. Narrabri notched up 61mm in the same period, and Moree recorded 54mm nearly half of what it would see for the entire month.
Those falls, in fact, set a new Moree record for the most amount of rain in one day in 20 years way above the previous record of 38.8mm received on April 28, 2007. Inverell had a double dose of rain that weekend, with two days showing some 85mm of the total 127mm it recorded all month. Of Glen Innes's nine rainy days, three of them involved big soakings of 40mm or more.
Tamworth's rain fell across nine days; it clocked up 86mm for the month. While the last day of the month didn't show enough to register, there was an overcast and light rainy day yesterday to welcome in May.
The forecast last night was for some light rain again today on the slopes to start us off well on what is traditionally our second-driest month of the year.
Glen Innes led the regional recordings with a massive 160mm for April, against what is an average April tally of 43mm.
Narrabri had 107mm for the month about 60 per cent up on its average figure.
The April rainfall figures follow a March during which a number of centres, such as Narrabri, Inverell and Tamworth, recorded monthly totals above the long-term average. April also saw some records when it came to temperatures, according to Ms Pepler.
"Tamworth had a mean maximum of 23.8 degrees Celsius, the coolest April days since 2008, when the mean maximum was recorded as 23.6C," she said.
The maximum temperature of 12.2C on April 21 was the coldest April day since 11C on April 12, 1994. At Moree, April delivered a mean maximum of 24.7C, which was the coldest April maximum since 1990, when the mean top was 23.5C. Glen Innes recorded a new record lowest daily maximum temperature of 10C on April 21 1C lower than the previous record set in 1994. Inverell recorded a maximum of 13.8C on the same day last month, nearly 2C below its previous coldest April day in 2008. Moree showed a maximum of 14.7C that same day, while Tamworth reached 12.2C.
