Summer ends in February storms

Areas of the Geelong region enjoyed average or above-average rain in February.
The only exceptions were the southern Otways and a couple of locations southwest of Ballarat. Even though they form much of the region’s water catchment areas, our storage levels were still at 65 per cent of capacity at the end of the month, which is healthy for this time of year.
Geelong’s 30-year average rain for February is 35.7mm, which was exceeded in most of the urban area and on the Bellarine Peninsula. This resulted in higher-than-forecast rain for summer overall, which finished around 115 per cent of the average.
So summer was wetter than normal, owing largely to several thunderstorm events as well as a lot of moist tropical air, which also provided more cloud than normal.
Geelong was also warmer than the 30-year average for February. Daily minimums averaged 15.8C and maximums 25.8C compared with 14C and 25.1C respectively.
Seven days were over 30C, with the maximum reaching 36.6C on 7 February.
The coolest day was the first of the month, with an 18.3C maximum. The warmest night was 22 to 23 February, with a low of 19.6C.
Summer temperatures overall were 1.1C warmer than the latest 30-year average but fewer very hot days were recorded, none over 40C. Fourteen days were over 30C compared with our average for summer of 15.4 days. Warmer nights explained most of this result.
February had five thunder days and several thunderstorms but none were severe.
On 21 February most of Geelong’s northern suburbs received thunderstorms. On 22 February only areas south of Grovedale had rain but the following day’s storms were more widespread across the urban area.
Even so, no storms were heavy or created flash-flooding or other damage.
Only one strong wind day was recorded, with a gust of 63km/h at Breakwater on 22 February.