Rainfall 2022: A record-breaking year

Rainfall records have tumbled across the nation with large parts of Australia on track to notch up their wettest year ever. Compare towns in our searchable list.

The year 2022 will be recalled for the smashing of rainfall records across Australia that stood for a century.

It will also be looked back on for deadly flash floods and moderate to high levels of flooding in January and February and then throughout October and November that continues to isolate communities.

Of 208 weather stations across Australia monitored by The Weekly Times, 184 had surpassed their long-term annual averages with almost three weeks of the year remaining.

While 11 places in NSW had recorded more than double their average annual total by December 10.

The wettest centres, as a percentage of the calendar year average, have been dominated by NSW with Nowra, on the state’s south coast, recording a massive 2494mm, or 286 per cent of what it would normally expect in a 12-month period to December 10.

The Bureau of Meteorology confirmed that a large number of stations in the north, central, and southeast and southwestern parts of Victoria and in NSW on the tablelands and inland slopes west of the Great Dividing Range observed their highest yearly rainfall totals on record.

Victorian centres to record a significantly wetter-than-average year include Swan Hill (603mm or 201 per cent of its 12-month average), Horsham (667mm or 183 per cent) and Mildura

(499mm or 175 per cent).

At the other end of the scale, Normanton in Queensland recorded just 442mm for the year – or 56 per cent of what it would normally expect.

The clean up continues in large parts of NSW and Victoria following this year’s floods. Picture: Toby Zerna