The Adelaide Hills, as the rain draws them
The Bureau of Meteorology’s own stations show the ridge catching more rain than the city at its foot: 547.1 mm in an average year at Adelaide (Kent Town), against 963.2 mm at the weather station on Mount Lofty.
500 mm
a year
Fire danger season 2025/26, Mount Lofty Ranges: 1 December 2025 to 30 April 2026 (the CFS dates page).
The Western Mount Lofty Ranges supply around 60% of Adelaide’s water on average, the state water resources note says.
500 mm a year
The Western Mount Lofty Ranges supply around 60% of Adelaide’s water on average, the state water resources note says.
Fire danger season 2025/26, Mount Lofty Ranges: 1 December 2025 to 30 April 2026 (the CFS dates page).
Adelaide (Kent Town)
- Height
- 48 m
- Rain a year
- 547.1 mm, 41 years of record, 1977 to 2020
- January
- 29.6 °C
Mount Lofty weather station
- Height
- 685 m
- Rain a year
- 963.2 mm, 15 years of record, 2009 to 2026
- January
- 23.5 °C
The Mount Lofty Summit lookout is here; the parks service gives the peak as more than 710 metres above sea level.
Bureau of Meteorology: Mount Lofty weather station statistics
Stirling
- Height
- 496 m
- Rain a year
- 1,191 mm, 80 years of record, 1884 to 1964
- January
- 24.9 °C
Mount Barker
- Height
- 359 m
- Rain a year
- 761.9 mm, 165 years of record, 1861 to 2026
- January
- 27.4 °C
Murray Bridge
- Height
- 33 m
- Rain a year
- 347.9 mm, 137 years of record, 1885 to 2026
- January
- 29.5 °C
The line joins the Bureau’s weather stations; the real ground between them rises and falls.
Reading the section
West is on the left and east on the right, as on a map.The section is turned on its side: west is at the top, east is at the bottom, and height runs from left to right. Each station sits at its own longitude and its own height above the sea.
A column of rain hangs over each station. The longer the column, the more rain falls there in an average year, and the years each record covers are printed beside the figure.
The arrow under the ground carries that rain west to the city: on average, the Western Mount Lofty Ranges supply around 60% of Adelaide’s water, the Department for Environment and Water’s 2021 technical note says.
The thin rule across the top marks the Mount Lofty Ranges fire danger season, which the CFS table gives as 1 December 2025 to 30 April 2026 for 2025/26. The CFS fire danger season page carries the season as it stands now.