Weather data: Port Macquarie breaks rainfall record for March 2022

The town received a whopping total of 609.8mm rainfall in March, according to Weatherzone data.

The wettest March on record was in 1974 where 678mm fell, followed by 1978 which notched up 631.8mm.

March 2021, where significant flooding occurred along the Mid North Coast and across the state, is now Port Macquarie's fourth wettest on record.

Weatherzone meteorologist Joel Pippard explained in 2021 majority of the rainfall fell across about a week in March, whereas in 2022 the rainfall was spread out across the month.

"The key difference is there was quite a lot of days above 30mm, but the wettest day (March 31) was 78mm for March in 2022," he said.

"In 2021 there was a very wet week, where the wettest day received 187mm (March 30) of rainfall."

Mr Pippard said La Nina had a significant overall impact on the amount of rainfall falling in Port Macquarie and across the NSW east coast.

"It's pretty clear the warmer water on the east coast of Australia are really helping to drive those rain systems," he said.

"It also has another effect where high pressure to the south of the region is more likely to occur.

"This helps traps these systems and makes linger for multiple days at a time."

Mr Pippard said La Nina is still in an active phase, however it's typical to see it start to decay at this time of year.

"It doesn't continue through winter," he said.

Mr Pippard said there could still be higher than average rainfall in April, but predicts May will be closer to the average mark.

"There's still the possibility of big rain events," he said.

According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour than a cooler atmosphere; this relationship can increase moisture in the atmosphere by seven per cent for each degree of global warming, which in turn increases the likelihood of heavy rainfall events.

Meanwhile, Kempsey recorded its coldest March in 21 years.

"That's certainly driven by the last week of March where it was very cloudy," Mr Pippard said.

The maximum temperature was 26 degrees across the month, which is 1.4 degrees below average.

"However, the minimum temperature was 17.3 degrees, which was 0.8 degrees above average."

Kempsey received 526mm of rainfall in March, which was well behind the record of 822mm of rainfall in 2021.

The wettest March day for Kempsey was on March 30 where 113.2mm fell.

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