Melbourne endured a cold and wet start to winter on Monday, continuing the city's wettest start to a year in 165 years of records.

A timely cold front passed over Victoria on the first day of winter, causing a cold, wet and windy day in Melbourne.

Image: A gloomy sky over Melbourne. Source: @abhilashshekhawat / Instagram

While the wintry mix of weather made Melbourne's temperature feel like six-to-eight degrees for most of the day, the mercury reached a top of 11.2 degrees on Monday. This was the city's coldest first day of winter since 1943 and its third coldest start to the season in records dating back to 1855. 

Melbourne also picked up 11.6mm of rain during the 24 hours to 9am on Tuesday, bringing its running annual rain total for 2020 up to 484.2mm. This is the city's highest total on record up to this point in the year, beating 473.7mm from 1911. Year-to-date rainfall data is available back to 1856.

Image: A cold and wet day in Melbourne on Monday. Source: @walking_perspective / Instagram

This year has been running a tight race with 1911 during the last few weeks. At the end of May, 2020 (467.6mm) was sitting in second place behind 1911 (472.9mm) for year-to-date rain.

May also rounded out Melbourne's wettest autumn since 1974.