![There was heavy rain in many parts of eastern Australia in January. Photo by Gregor Heard. There was heavy rain in many parts of eastern Australia in January. Photo by Gregor Heard.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/5Q2j7ezUfQBfUJsaqK3gfB/4b97e440-2833-445b-a825-2414eafd63b9_rotated_90.JPG/r0_0_3168_2554_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Australia has recorded its ninth wettest January on record according to Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) data with small patches of the northern Northern Territory and the Victorian High Country breaking their January records.
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In spite of the El Nino event present in the Pacific Ocean, correlated with drier than average conditions, tropical moisture was able to stream down, delivering substantial falls over all but the far west of the country and a small area on the NSW north central coast.
The BOM calculated that overall the national area-averaged rainfall total was 47.4 per cent above the 1961-1990 average, making it the ninth-wettest January on record since observations began in 1900.
January rainfall was very much above average, defined as being in the highest 10pc of Januarys on record since 1900, for much of Victoria, large parts in the north of the Northern Territory, central and southern New South Wales, southern South Australia, and scattered areas across Western Australia and Queensland.
Rainfall in January rainfall was the highest on record for much of the Northern Territory's Gregory district, extending into adjacent Daly, Carpentaria and Barkly districts, and for the BOM's Victorian North Central district, encompassing elevated areas north-east of Melbourne.
The rain was heaviest in relation to average in Victoria, which had its fifth-wettest January on record, with state-wide rainfall more than double the average.
For the Northern Territory as a whole, it was the fourth-wettest January on record, at 90.2pc above the 1961-1990 average, the wettest January since 1984.
Meanwhile, heavy rain has continued in early February in parts of northern Australia, with good falls through the Gulf of Carpentaria in Queensland and the Northern Territory, flowing down into Queensland's Channel Country and through north-west and central NSW.
The highest weekly total, at a Bureau gauge, was 611mm at Westmoreland Station in far western Queensland near the border of the NT in the Gulf Country, which included the highest daily total of 332mm in the 24 hours to 9am, February 2.