TAMWORTH is inching closer towards the wettest summer on record, and is already sitting in fourth place.
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Data dating back to 1993 - when the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) weather station moved from Taminda to the airport near Westdale - shows the summer season of 2020 to 2021 has been a rain-drenched one.
With only one week left of summer, the Tamworth BoM station has officially clocked more than 303mm in the rain gauge.
It's only a drop more than last summer - the city's fifth wettest - when 302mm fell on the city.
The big winner for Tamworth was December 2020, when 223.6mm of the wet stuff bucketed down.
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A more mild January saw 23.6mm fall, and so far in February, the official total is hovering around 56mm.
Another couple of showers are needed to get 2020-21 summer into the bronze spot, and there is rain forecast in the coming days that could bump this not-so-sunny season up into third place.
In the past almost 30 years, the wettest summer was December 2011 to February 2012, when a whopping 435mm was dumped on Tamworth.
The second was back in the 2003-04 season, when 374.6mm fell.
The third wettest was in 2014-15, when 308.8mm of rain was recorded at the BoM gauge at the airport.
Tamworth could be in for a soaking this week, according to the BoM forecast.
There is a 90 per cent chance of between 8 and 15mm of rain on Wednesday, an 80 per cent chance of between 8 and 20mm on Thursday and a 70 per cent chance of between 5 and 15mm on Friday.
Only about 5mm of the precious resource would need to fall on the city for this current summer season to be bumped up to the third wettest in recent history.
It likely won't be a summer for the record books though, with 70mm needed to inch up to second spot and a more than 130mm of flooding rains needed to get into the top spot.
La Nina is still active in Australia.
The wet, cloudy and cool weather this summer worked wonders for local water supplies, and Chaffey Dam has risen to a level not seen since the onset of the devastating drought.
The water supply was sitting at 33 per cent capacity when December 2020 rolled around, but is now up to almost 42 per cent full.
According to the BoM's monthly rainfall charts at Gunnedah airport - which date back to 2001 - summer 2020-21 was the wettest in at least 20 years.
From December 2020 to late February 2021, Gunnedah airport had recorded 353.4mm of rain, a figure which was largely boosted by the record 228.8mm received in December.
The only summer that came close to topping it was 2007-08 with 338.3mm, followed by summer 2009-10 with 313.6mm.
Lake Keepit went from 26 per cent full at the start of the warm season, and had risen to 38 per cent by Monday.
Police and crime reporter at the Newcastle Herald.
Police and crime reporter at the Newcastle Herald.
