You would not be wrong if you thought it had rained more than usual over the last few months. Unfortunately, the Bureau of Meteorology (The Bureau) says we have a bit more pain to come before we hit more typical winter weather patterns with more sunny days.

It is a combination of the amount of rainy days and above-average rainfall in April that has people complaining.

According to The Bureau's statistics, the mean number of rainy days for rain (that is greater than 1mm) in March is 13.4, for March 2024, it was 19 days with only 4 zeros recorded. For April, the mean is 9.9 rainy days; this year, we recorded 11 rainy days, and for May, the early numbers are not encouraging, with 5 days out of 7 recording over 1mm of rainfall with a mean of 6.

In terms of rainfall, January (142.8mm), February (115.8mm) and March (181.8mm) recorded the median rainfall (slightly down in February). However, April was 80mm more and May has nearly reached the 66mm median number in 7 days, recording 53mm.

So, it is no wonder our golf courses, sporting fields and bush walks are so wet underfoot.

Dean Marramore, a senior meteorologist with The Bureau said the current system is an unusual weather pattern for Lismore and the Northern Rivers.

"At the moment, we've got to zoom right out of it to see what's affecting us in the Northern Rivers. It's thanks, essentially, to this very large, almost stationary high-pressure system south of Tasmania. It's been there for a couple of weeks and looking to be there for at least another week."

(The high-pressure system sitting over Tasmania. This is the forecast for Thursday at 10am)

"Why that's important for us here in the Northern Rivers is that the winds go anti-clockwise around that high-pressure system. So, we're just getting this prolonged period of east to southeasterly winds, which is continuing to push in the moisture with these daily hit-and-miss showers and sometimes hitting brief areas of rain as well."

"With the high sitting there for another week, that means it's pretty much this cooler but moist and almost humid for this time of year, not humid compared to summer but humid for this time of year, pattern continuing with the daily hit-and-miss showers and sometimes focusing into rain occasionally."

"It's not a big widespread heavy soak but just a constant 10 to 20 millimetres if you're under a few showers, some days less, some days more. But, of course, as you know, over a week, that can add up to almost 100 millimetres in some areas, and that's what we're expecting this week as well."

"Those 100-millimetre falls will be more isolated rather than widespread. It's just where you kind of get lots of showers over the next week.

(The weather radar at 6:40pm last night showing the east to southeast winds pushing into the Northern Rivers)

The good news is that this weather pattern will start breaking down next week.

"We'll get some cold fronts that will move through the South and that will kind of flip the winds to westerlies because, as you know, when the winds come off from the west and down the hills, we get much drier weather. That looks to hopefully, at this stage, come to us around early to mid, probably more mid next week, and that high will finally disappear or bugger off," Dean laughs.

This will certainly be welcomed by everyone, but what about the typical winter weather pattern, when will we start to experience our dry months?

"I think that's what we're all kind of waiting for on the East Coast. So, the showers and normally these highs, these large highs, kind of move through over a five to seven-day period. You know, Perth, and then Tassie and then on to New Zealand, but this high at the moment, it's just pretty much being stuck south of Tassie. But, once those cold fronts return, that is a more normal winter pattern. And when we do have that, it means showers and cold to the south, but up here in the northern rivers, it means much drier conditions, sunshine returning that will allow us to dry out."

We are not quite at the drying conditions stage, but as Dean said, there is a light at the end of our wet tunnel.