The Bureau of Meteorology’s Kerang gauge recorded 30.2 millimetres of rainfall in January.

This figure is slightly above the 23.8 millimetre long-term mark, and less than one-fifth of the 160.8 millimetres recorded at the same time last year.

More than half of last month’s total occurred in the final two days of the month.

Kerang received 11.0 millimetres between 9am on January 29 and 9am on January 30, with a further 8.2 millimetres occurring in the following 24 hours.

Temperatures varied during the month, with the first three days of the year resembling summer, whilst the middle of the four-week period seemed more like winter than the warmest part of the year.

The mercury passed 35 degrees on 12 occasions in January, with two of those occasions involving temperatures above 40 degrees.

January 3’s maximum of 40.7 degrees was the warmest day since February 1, 2011.

Residents struggled to sleep on nine occasions last month when overnight temperatures failed to drop below 20 degrees.

The January 18 minimum of 24.5 degrees was warmer than the coldest day of the year so far – January 11, when the temperature struggled to reach 22.5 degrees.

The cold weather also contributed to January 12’s minimum of 9.1 degrees – the coldest January night in two years.