We all know the last month was a wet one but how did October in 2020 compare to past years?
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What was the driest October in history, what was the wettest and was it hotter this year?
The Leader uncovered the answers to these questions by taking a deep dive into the Bureau of Meteorology's historical climate data.
First off, it's worth noting these statistics are from the Tamworth Airport weather stations.
The original one which was there from 1876 and its replacement which was installed in 1992. There was also a couple of years - 1886-1888 and 1941 - missing from the data. But, now onto the interesting stuff.
The first thing we found, and something that most people would have already suspected, was that October in 2020 was wetter than average.
The historical average was 57.75mm while Tamworth got 73.6mm of rain in 2020.
But when you look across the years, 73.6mm seems measly to the biggest Octobers.
The wettest October came in 1955 when 177.2mm fell. 1955 was actually nestled between two other 100mm-plus Octobers in 1954 and 1956.
Eleven times, more than 100mm has fallen in the month of October with the most recent being in 2000.
While it wasn't the wettest October, 2020 was well above the driest.
There was never been a completely dry October in Tamworth but it's been close.
On 17 occasions there has been less than 20mm for the month of October and four times the total was less than 10mm. They came in 1957 (7.1mm) - the year after three consecutive Octobers of 100-plus millimetres of rain - 1926 (5.4mm), 1918 (5.1mm) and 1900 (5.3mm).
October was also warmer this year.
The mean maximum temperature for October is 25.16 degrees while in 2020 it was 27.1.
Meanwhile, the mean minimum temperature was only slightly higher with the historical average for October being 9.86 degrees and 2020 sitting at 10.3.
As for what the next few months hold, Tamworth Regional Weather's Dave Farrenden said there's a lot more storm activity on the horizon throughout November, December and January.
"It's certainly going to be wetter than average because La Nina will be in full mode," Mr Farrenden said.
"Comparing this one to our last strong La Nina in 2010, it's pretty much similar in strength."
That year, 2010, was one of just three years to ever record over 1000mm in Tamworth when 1017.8mm fell.
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Ben Jaffrey
Ben is a content curator and journalist for The Land. He has been with ACM since 2015 and first worked at The Area News and then at the Northern Daily Leader. Ben first joined ACM Agri as a digital journalist for all seven agricultural mastheads in 2022 before shifting to The Land full-time in 2023.
Ben is a content curator and journalist for The Land. He has been with ACM since 2015 and first worked at The Area News and then at the Northern Daily Leader. Ben first joined ACM Agri as a digital journalist for all seven agricultural mastheads in 2022 before shifting to The Land full-time in 2023.
