- Rainfall records at the Sea Lake post office date back to July 1896.
- The wettest year on record was 1973, when 651.4mm was recorded. This was followed by 2010 when the town’s annual rainfall was 605.6mm.
- 1982 marked the driest year on record, with an annual rainfall of 120.8mm.
- The wettest month on record was February, 1911 with 194mm recorded for the month, causing flooding throughout the town.
- While rainfall has been recorded at the site for 126 years, data is missing between September and December 1901 and July and December 1911.
- This year is looking positive with the town already recording 165.3mm of rain.RECORDING the daily rainfall for the Sea Lake community was a task Shane Kiley automatically inherited when he purchased the local post office six years ago.
While no pun is intended, Mr Kiley said the daily task was part and parcel of the purchase.
“It was weird at first,” Mr Kiley said.
“I had no interest in the rainfall.”
Having relocated from Ballarat, it didn’t take long for him to settle into his new role and he soon realised what an important job it was.
Rain, hail or shine, Mr Kiley heads to the rain gauge at the back of the post office each morning at 9am, recording and uploading the daily rainfall to the Bureau of Meteorology website.
Mr Kiley also has a record of the daily rainfall figures pinned to the wall of his post office, where weather dominates much of the conversation between customers.
“It’s a talking point,” Mr Kiley said, noting he soon realised the impact rainfall had on the town and local businesses.
“When the farmers have a good year, businesses have a good year,” he said.
“We often have locals drop in just to check the weather chart and see what is happening.”
Recently the Bureau of Meteorology visited the post office to perform an audit of the site.
Mr Kiley said the visit was a really interesting experience.
“They took measurements of several trees which act as markers and these were then recorded,” Mr Kiley said.
“They looked at how much the trees had grown since the last audit, taking into account the rainfall data.”
During the visit, rainfall records from the site, dating back to 1896, were also handed over to Mr Kiley.
“I can only go back so far with the data I provide so to receive readings from more than 100 years ago was like being handed a significant piece of the town’s history,” he said.
Shane’s mum, Robyn Kiley, said weather patterns have always been of interest to the local community.
She recalled her mum keeping a record of the rainfall in a little notebook when she lived in Sea Lake.
“Mum just lived up the road, not far from here,” Ms Kiley said.
“She would write the rainfall into the book, along with any other significant notes of interest.”
Recalling a time when the ommunity was getting ready for a funeral, Ms Kiley said the weather had been so cold that her mum was unable to turn on the taps as the water had frozen, something which was documented in the notebook at the time.
“It would be really interesting to go back and read it now,” she said.
According to Bureau of Meteorology data, the wettest year in Sea Lake dates back to 1973, when 651mm was recorded for the year.
However, drought impacted the region in 1982 when the town had its driest year on record, with only 120mm of rainfall for the year.
