The year 2019 was the hottest and driest year on record for Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology's (BoM) annual climate statement confirms.
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Last year, the annual national mean temperature 1.52°C above average, making it the warmest year so far, which was above the old record of 1.33°C above average recorded in 2013.
Dr Karl Braganza, head of climate monitoring in BoM said the record warm and dry year was one of the key factors influencing recent and current fire conditions in large parts of the country.
"2019 was consistently warm, but it was book-ended by periods of extreme heat," Dr Braganza said.
"January last year was the warmest month Australia has ever recorded, while just a few weeks ago in December, we saw the Australia-wide record hottest daily average maximum temperature broken multiple days in a row.
"At the same time, rainfall deficiencies across large parts of eastern Australia have continued to increase, unfortunately exacerbating both drought conditions and the current bushfires."
Both the mean annual maximum and minimum temperatures were above average for all states and the Northern Territory.
The months of January, February, March, April, July, October, and December were among the warmest on record for Australia mean temperature for their respective months.
Heatwaves were recorded in the months of January and December.
With the national average rainfall recorded 40% below average at 77.7mm, 2019 was also the driest year on record for the nation.
It was below the lowest 314.5mm recorded in 1902.
As per the report, "although every period of rainfall deficiency is different, the extraordinarily low rainfall experienced this year has been comparable to that seen in the driest periods in Australia's recorded history, including the Federation Drought and the Millenium Drought."
Severe drought conditions were experienced in New South Wales and southern Queensland.
The report states that a very strong positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) was one of the main influences on Australia's climate during 2019, and contributed to very low rainfall across Australia.
The annual climate statement is BoM's official summary of the previous year and includes information on temperature, rainfall and significant weather.
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