January might be only 13 days old but Orange has already exceeded its average number of rainy days.
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An overnight shower that brought 2.6 millimetres of rain to the Orange Airport weather station, but less elsewhere around the city, created the seventh day of the month we have seen rain.
The mean number of days rain has been recorded in Orange in January since 1996 is 6.3.
February-April is likely to be wetter than average for much of Australia
- Bureau of Meteorology forecast
Variations in where rainfall is recorded in Orange were evident again on Wednesday morning.
While the airport site recorded 2.6mm, automatic rainfall gauges around Orange listed on the Bureau of Meteorology's website showed falls of 1.6mm at the Orange Agricultural Institute and between 0.5-1.6mm at other sites.
There was no rain recorded at an automatic station in north Orange.
Orange mayor Cr Reg Kidd is among people in the city calling for a city-based official rainfall measurement station.
Cr Kidd said he would ask council, when it resumes, to contact the BoM seeking a city site.
More rain is forecast. There is a 40 per cent chance of rain this week ahead of a dry spell.
The BoM says February will also be wetter than average.
A long-range BoM forecast said the wetter weather was set to continue into autumn.
"February-April is likely to be wetter than average for much of Australia," it said.
"[There] is a greater than 65 chance for large parts of NSW."
Orange's weather has also been slightly cooler with none of the first 12 days exceeding 30 degrees.
That's in sharp contrast to 12 months ago when the temperature in Orange was over 30 degrees on all of the first 10 days.
That included two days when it reached 38.6 degrees.
Orange's water storage level is now up to 63.08 per cent.
Spring Creek Dam is nearly full while Suma Park Dam is at 54.4 per cent capacity.
The same time last year, when Orange was in drought and on Level 5 water restrictions, the storage level was just over 20 per cent full.
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