We're one week in to 2021, there's already 89mm of rain in the airport gauge and the thermometer has only reached 30 degrees once (at time of preparing for print).

Since Saturday, a number of storms have rolled through Forbes and surrounds, with winds of up to 87km/hr and more than an inch of rain as well as hail hitting town on Monday morning.

With the rains coming in a couple of waves, there was 36.2mm by Tuesday morning on top of 37.6mm that came in Saturday storms.

The Advocate's online readers reported falls as high as 48mm in Linda Street.

It seems Forbes was spared, however, the damage sustained in Parkes where a "supercell" struck on Saturday afternoon. Flash flooding was seen through the town centre and winds of up to 158km/hr were recorded at the Parkes airport.

You could hardly have imagined a more complete contrast to this time last year, when the pages of the Advocate were dominated by images of incredible dust storms.

Nowhere was the turn-around in the season more evident than at Thursday's first-cross ewe sale where the pen of Glamis-Shield winning stock opened the sale fetching an incredible $434. The full story in an upcoming edition.

After our fortunes changed last February, Forbes airport recorded 794.2mm - more than 31 inches - for the year, according to Bureau of Meteorology records.

That was more than 100mm more than recorded in 2016 (692.4mm). Since records have been taken at Forbes airport the only year wetter was 2010 (944.8mm).

The wettest year on record at Camp Street, back to 1876, was 1950 (1130mm).

Our 2020 rainfall total was more than our total rainfall for 2018 (320.4mm) and 2019 (236mm) combined.

Forbes received average or above average rainfall nine months of 2020. The wettest month was April with 186.2mm, the driest May with 24.6mm.

Looking ahead, the BoM says eastern Australia can continue to expect above-average rainfall in the next three months, La Nina remains active but is likely to be nearing its peak.