Sporadic showers that dampened the capital on Tuesday afternoon had little impact on rainfall figures as the ACT experienced a drier than average May.
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Canberrans woke to grey skies and drizzle and an early morning fog, which drifted across many parts of NSW and had visibility down to 300 metres at Canberra Airport about 7.30am.
A low pressure trough meant forecast showers began to fall across Canberra about 11.30am.
Weatherzone.com.au meteorologist Kim Westcott said about 5 millimetres of rain had fallen by early evening, though up to 20 millimetres fell in parts of southern NSW.
Ms Westcott said while heavier rains fell on Tuesday night, much of the rain had skirted around the ACT.
"Any rain in Canberra is good at the moment because it's really dry.
"For May, Canberra typically receives 43 millimetres of rain.
"Currently, not including the rain that fell on Tuesday, Canberra's currently sitting on 2 millimetres of rain."
Tuesday was only the second rainy day in the capital this month, which was also below the norm.
"Typically we would expect 8.5 to nine days of rain in May and we're running out of days for that to happen now," Ms Westcott said.
She said the drier than normal conditions were caused by a broad high-pressure zone which had brought mostly clear skies and eye-catching sunsets to the region recently.
That same pressure pattern had been around for about two weeks and meant parts of Victoria and South Australia had experienced heavy rain and gusty winds, but NSW and the ACT had largely missed out.
Ms Westcott predicted Canberra would possibly experience showers on Wednesday and Thursday but the skies would likely dry up for the weekend.
Clear, sunny skies meant crisp mornings and cooler morning temperatures would return next week after cloud cover and showers brought a string of slightly warmer days.
Temperatures dropped to 4 degrees on Tuesday morning, which was just above the average of 3 degrees.
That was considerably warmer than last week's coldest minimum temperature of -4.7 degrees.
The mercury was tipped to hit a high of 18 degrees on Wednesday.
Maximum temperatures were expected to hover around 15 or 16 degrees next week, with overnight temperatures forecast to drop below zero.
