GARDENERS and farmers west of Dubbo weren't able to land a surprise, wet present as a pattern of thunderstorms surged through the state on Christmas Day.
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Dubbo's airport rainfall monitoring system only measured 1.6 millimetres while a number of centres to the east of the city enjoyed tremendous falls with Mudgee leading the way with 63mm on Christmas Day.
Bathurst had 37mm, Dunedoo 39mm and Gulgong recorded 36mm.
The village of Cassilis on the Golden Highway logged 54mm while Coolah had 15mm and Binnaway measured 11mm.
Further to the north, Tambar Springs had 30mm and Mullaley with 37mm provided some more than welcome relief form an extended dry period. One farming family - located between Mullaley and Tambar Springs and with 40 or so guests for Christmas lunch - had the bonus of 69mm falling in storm rain.
Gilgandra measured 8.6mm and Trangie had 2mm.
To date Dubbo airport has only measured 5.4mm for the month with the 1.8mm the heaviest fall up until December 27.
On that form Dubbo looks set to have its driest month since 1998 when 5.6mm was recorded.
The hottest day of December was the first day with a sticky 39.9 degrees, pushing towards the hottest day in the record keeping period of 1993 to 2011, which was 42.1 deg in 1994.