By KATH GANNAWAY
AS IS the pattern, rainfall on either side of the Yarra Valley reflected the varying landscapes.
Doug Armstrong in Hoddles Creek recorded 97mm over 10 days in November compared to 118mm over the same number of days last year against an average November rainfall of 107mm. His January to November totals were1072mm compared to 1148 last year.
For December the figures were 88mm compared with 99mm with a 12-month total of 1160mm a tad short of last year’s 1238mm.
In Healesville, Alma Mitchell recorded 71.3mm over 11 days in November, almost spot-on with last year’s tally of 71.2mm over 15 days.
In December, Alma’s rain gauge collected 58.1mm over 17 days compared with 78.3mm in 2013 over 14 days.
The 12-month total was 905.4mm for 2014 compared to 792.6mm last year.
Warburton’s figures for December are also lower than the average with Keith Thomas recording only 95.5mm against the December average of 109.7mm.
The total rainfall for the year at Warburton was 1205mm, considerably less than the average of 1343.3mm.
Mr Thomas said despite the reduced rainfall Melbourne storage dams were in particularly good shape holding 1,451,729 million litres, which is 75.5 per cent of capacity.
