Ballarat has shivered through its coldest winter in 16 years and wettest winter in 14 years, with 260mm

dumped on the city.

A whopping 161mm of rain fell last month alone, making it Ballarat’s wettest August in 101 years.

There were also a few flurries of snow around town.

WeatherZone meteorologist Brett Dutschke said Ballarat had experienced a ‘‘real winter’’.

‘‘August’s daytime temperature average was only 10 degrees, 1.5 degrees below the long-term average,’’ he said.

Night temperatures hovered around 2.9 degrees.

And while today is the first day of spring, the city has been warned not to shed the woollie socks just yet.

‘‘(The warm weather) will be a little while coming,’’ Mr Dutschke said.

‘‘There’s a bit of rain at the moment. We’re looking at between 5mm and 15mm for the region. This weekend

you can expect 20mm to 40mm of rain and a burst of strong winds.’’

Mr Dutschke said the weather would not start to warm up until midspring.

‘‘We could even see some extremely hot days before the end of spring, with the potential for high fire danger days,’’ he said.

Ballarat can also expect reasonably frequent rain.

‘‘It will be a real mixed bag, with good bouts of rain, warm

days and a couple of coldies thrown in too,’’ Mr Dutschke said.