October 2022 Summary

Well, here we go again...its the end of the month of October meteorologically in AU and I'm reasonably confident the figures as of 3.45pm today wont change for the rest of the day.
October throughout the Territory has been characterised by a tale of two halves of the month. Early October in the Top End was relatively cool and wet, with unseasonal rain and storms and below average temperatures.
About the middle of the month, the Top End dried out, the storms disappeared and we entered into well above average  max, min and dp's conditions.
This is often a feature of the climate in the Deep North, La Nina years cause rain and flooding in the south east of the Continent, while we have to endure heatwave conditions.
Darwin Airport came in above average for both max and min temps, and the run of 7 consecutive days above 28.2c min temps was a first for October.
Darwin's min average was 26.1c, +1.2c above the long term mean.
Darwin's max average was 33.8c, +0.5c above the long term mean ( note Sept 2022 also 33.8c )
As mentioned above, we had 7 consecutive min temps aboce 28.2c, c/w DP's around 25-26c ! Tough for sleeping sans AC !
The first half of Oct was relatively cool, cloudy and wet in Darwin, with 161mm of rain falling on 16 days. Well above the averge of 71.3mm. The median Oct rainfall is only 52.8mm.

Highest max temp - 36.4c on the 30th
Lowest max temp - 29.7c on the 1st
Highest min temp - 29.2c on the 24th ( a new October record, previous record 29.0c in 2021 )
Lowest min temp - 21.7c on the 9th





The eastern side of the Top End is traditionally drier than the Darwin region and the western Top End, and is generally milder than Darwin.
Gove Airport has been suffering under heatwave conditions for most of October, and it much drier than Darwin during the early build up months.
Gove - ites have been complaining bitterly of the heat on our local weather FB pages...lol|
The min temps a whopping +3.1c anomaly and the max temps +1.7c anomaly. Large departures from the norm, especially only 12.3*S of the Equator !
Only 1 day of rain:- 8mm on the 14th ( average 9.9mm, median 1.4mm )

Highest max temp - 36.0c on the 21st and 29th
Lowest max temp - 30.7c on the 2nd
Highest min temp - 27.1c on the 5th
Lowest min temp - 23.0c on the 19th





Alice Springs also experienced a variable month for max & min temps and rainfall. October is still a transitional month between summer and winter in the Alice
Min temps above average by 1.1c and max temps above average by 0.4c
As an example of the 'variability', the highest and lowest max temps for the month in Alice Springs were recorded on consecutive days 39.4c on the 12th followed by 21.3c on the 13th ! Remembering the Alice is very close to the Tropic of Capricorn, so an outstanding temp drop !
There were 10 Oct days with recorded rainfall, the total of 27.8mm was above the long term average of 19.9mm The October median is 17.1mm 

Highest max temp - 39.4c on the 12th
Lowest max temp - 21.3c on the 13th
Highest min temp - 23.2c on the 31st
Lowest min temp - 6.4c on the 14th