The Sydney weather forecast is good for the third Test between Australia and Pakistan at the SCG starting this Wednesday, January 3 – and indeed you'd have to say it's exceptionally promising by local standards.

• Play should start on time on Wednesday and continue all day without any rain interruptions.
• A southerly change moving up the NSW coast could bring showers and even a thunderstorm late on Thursday,  with showers possibly persisting into Friday morning, before the weekend arrives with just the chance of a light shower each day.
• The good news for cricket lovers is that there's virtually no chance of persistent rain or thunderstorm activity of the type the city experienced in closing out 2023, with rain recorded on 10 of the last 12 days of December.

In recent years, there have been calls to shift the New Year's Test from Sydney, including from the late great Shane Warne, as Sydney has earned a reputation as Australia's rainy cricket city.

And while Cricket Australia is holding firm to the tradition of the Sydney New Year's Test, it's true that the Harbour City can be pretty soggy at this time of year:

Sydney is Australia's second-wettest capital city after Darwin with 1222.2 mm of rainfall annually. Those who know their cricket will enjoy the Richie Benaud connection in that figure.

Not only that, but as you can see in the chart below, Sydney receives over 100 mm of rain on average in January spread across an average of 12.2 rain days, making it the city's sixth-wettest month.

The last televised cricket match in Sydney was not a complete washout – that was the Big Bash match between the aptly named Sydney Thunder and the Sydney Sixers on the evening of December 30 – but rain still arrived too early for the match to finish, meaning it was a no-result.

So how many entire days of Test cricket in Sydney have been lost to rain over the years?

Cricket statistician Ric Finlay crunched the numbers last year. The first Test match ever played between any two countries was in 1877. That was the Australia vs England match at the MCG.

Since then, according to Finlay, Sydney has seen by far the most days of Test cricket completely lost to rain, with 25.

Image: Hopefully we won't see repeated scenes like this in 2023. Source: AAP Image/Dean Lewins.

Here's Finlay's list by city, from least days washed out to most, with the overall number of Tests played in each city in brackets.

• 0 Perth (47 Tests)
• 1 Hobart (14)
• 2 Adelaide (81)
• 8 Brisbane (67)
• 9 Melbourne (115)
• 25 Sydney (110)

As a cheeky little add-on, Finlay included the relevant stat for Manchester, which has lost 24 days to rain. Yes, Sydney has seen more washed-out days of Test cricket than gloomy old Manchester, and you can read more about that in the story below which we wrote two years ago.

READ MORE: Cricket weather reality check: Sydney is as wet as Manchester

But the good news as mentioned is that Sydney should be fine for most of the 2024 Test match, meaning David Warner will get his chance to bow out of Test cricket a winner.