I remember a year twelve maths exam I sat back in 1992. We were armed with a stack of weather data and we were asked to determine whether there is a relationship between Adelaide’s and Melbourne’s weather patterns. After all, many of us would be familiar with the idea that a heat spell in South Australia’s coastal region will arrive in Melbourne a few days later.

Pivoting this style of analysis to Melbourne’s property market, I’ve collated the data and the auction clearance rates over our Spring season so far to question our weather.

Does bad weather make a difference on auction day?

The Bureau of Meteorology provides a weather register for pretty much any area and date we can dream up. From minimum and maximum temperatures to rainfall, wind gusts to evapo-transpiration rates, and wind direction, it’s all there.

It’s the auction clearance rate data that is a little bit harder to firm up. Aside from the slight variation between the data houses, the reliance on agents to report effectively is the challenge. Many results are unreported, and the integrity of the data is not completely reliable. For example, a pass-in result may be recorded as a sale. Whether the sale occurred on the day, or in the days following is not captured. Withdrawn auctions aren’t always identified either, despite being counted.

However, I utilised Domain’s reported auction clearance rates for this study. I extracted the two anomaly weekends from the data set; namely AFL Grand Final Day and the Saturday preceding Melbourne Cup Day. As ridiculous as it sounds, the footy grand final and “the race that stops the nation” broadly stop auction activity in Melbourne.

The Pearson correlation coefficient between Saturday max temperature and Melbourne auction clearance rates is:

-0.047

• This is a very weak negative correlation, effectively zero.
• It suggests that there is no meaningful relationship between Saturday temperature and auction clearance rates across September–November 2025.
• Clearance rates remain tightly clustered (66–71%) regardless of temperature (12.7°C–25.3°C).

However, when I plot the data with rainfall included, the correlation between Saturday rainfall (mm) and Melbourne auction clearance rates is:

-0.457

This is a moderate negative correlation.

The coefficient suggests that higher rainfall on Saturdays tends to coincide with slightly lower clearance rates.

So… auction clearance rates this Spring season have been slightly lower on rainy days. However, this is not all that conclusive, for two main reasons:

Firstly, the small sample size (only nine Saturdays) is not a reliable sized data set.

Secondly, there are most definitely other factors at play; market conditions, government incentives, economic announcements and forecasts each week, listing volumes, and buyer/vendor sentiment. Each and all of these could also explain the auction clearance rate variation.

Having spent almost two decades every Saturday attending auctions, I can vouch for one thing.

Melbourne’s weather is often horrid, and buyers will stand in hail if that’s what it takes.