Overall, Victoria was drier than average in September 2019.
Western parts of the Wimmera and south-west district, along with the east central district recorded near average monthly totals.
But in the north, most places were drier than normal, especially parts of the north-east.
January and April were very dry, and May was very wet, but overall the year to date rainfall is below average for the state.
Rainfall for the first nine months of the year was near average in parts of the south and east, but elsewhere it was mostly below average.
Parts of the Mallee, north-east and central Gippsland have year-to-date rainfall totals in the driest 10 per cent of their long-term records.
September daytime temperatures were warmer than usual in the northern Mallee and the south-east but elsewhere were close to average.
Nights were cooler than average in the north and north-west.
Record May rainfall over the southwest, with good follow up in June, and above-average rainfall over west Gippsland in August recharged soil moisture in those areas.
Root zone soil moisture for September was above average across parts of southern central Victoria, while further north, soil moisture was close to average across most of the Wimmera and north central district, but in the Mallee, north-east and east Gippsland soil moisture was below average.
Central Gippsland has some of Victoria's driest soils compared to normal.
Relative soil moisture is lower across NSW and South Australia compared with Victoria, with large areas in those states close to lowest on record.
Dry soils mean less runoff, as much of the rainfall will first soak into the ground, which leads to lower streamflows.
Average to below average streamflows are forecast across most of Victoria for September-November 2019, with only a handful of sites in southern Victoria likely to have average to above-average flows, after earlier above-average rainfall.
Recent conditions and forecast inflows mean we will only see modest increases in many water storages across the state.
Overall water storage levels for the state have been increasing since May and it's likely we're already past the peak storage inflow for this season.
Overall storage level for Victoria is about 53pc full, compared with 67pc at this time last year, while levels for NSW and SA are about 29pc and 96pc full respectively.
- Jonathan Pollock is a BOM climatologist
