After months of very little rainfall in the Upper Hunter, heavy rain has fallen. Murrurundi has recorded 128.0 mm of rain in the last 72 hours ending to 9am today. Most areas of the Hunter have recorded more then 90mm for the last 72 hours (see table below) making the Hunter the wettest Meteorological region for this time period in New South Wales. Despite the heavy rain, only minor urban flooding has been reported.

This rain event was the heaviest and most widespread so far this year. Heavy rain events have been recorded earlier in the year but have only occurred in the Lower Hunter each time. Until now the Upper Hunter has recorded a number of months with below average rainfall. During the months of October and November, some rainfall stations in the Upper Hunter recorded less then 5mm of rain in total. Even though the rain has brought the Lower Hunter's rainfall to near average for 2002, the Upper Hunter is still well below average.

Rainfall totals for seleted stations

	Gosford	Williamtown	Tocal	Maitland	Upper Chichester	Scone	Murrurundi
10/12/02	5.2	13.4	7.8	5.0	11.0	6.2	10.8
11/12/02	119.4	88.0	122.0	84.2	168.0	89.4	106.8
12/12/02	17.0	46.4	16.0	9.8	20.0	10.0	10.4
Total	141.6	147.8	145.8	99.0	199.0	105.6	128.0

Units in millimetres (mm). Data supplied by the Bureau of Meteorology.

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