Katherine's worst wet season in decades last year has already been beaten despite a relatively hot and dry start to 2021.
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Bureau of Meteorology senior climatologist Greg Browning said the weather station at RAAF Base Tindal is the most reliable for Katherine and recorded 549.8mm of rain from October to January in 2020/2021.
This smashes the measly 249mm recorded at the same time last wet season and even surpasses the total 2019/20 wet season rainfall of 457mm with a few months still to go.
"All the numbers are a little bit closer to average," Mr Browning said.
While October to January this time around has been slightly below the long term average, it hasn't been far off with Tindal recording 92 per cent of the long term average rainfall for this time period.
"All the numbers are a little bit closer to average," Mr Browning said.
The good news comes despite a hot and dry January in Katherine, with the effects of climate change being too strong for La Nina which was expected to bring cooler conditions.
"January was drier than average... it was only about 130mm (monthly total) compared to a long term average of 257mm," Mr Browning said.
"The temperature was warmer during the day and pretty similar for overnight temperatures."
The average daytime maximum for Tindal is 34.2 degrees, while this January saw an average daily maximum of 35.1 degrees. Night maximums were 25.4 degrees this year, above the January average of 24.3 degrees.
"Climate change has certainly made the Territory warmer than usual for some time now," Mr Browning said.
"We are in a La Nina climate cycle, typically that would have led to cooler than average temperatures."
As for rain, Mr Browning said there's still some way to go if Katherine is going to reach its average rainfall total of approximately 1025mm by the end of the wet season.
He said the outlook for rain throughout the rest of the wet season is good and the total will likely get close to 1025mm by April 2021.
"We're still in this La Nina climate phase... that typically favours above average rainfall.
"The climate outlooks... all suggest there's a good chance of above average rainfall between now and the end of April.
"There's every chance we do get, if not above the long term average, very close to the long term average."
Mr Browning said there is a "good possibility" of strong rainfalls in the coming weeks due to a low pressure system developing in the Gulf of Carpentaria moving to the Katherine area.
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