IT was a long, hot summer that tested the best of us and broke nationwide records.
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However the latest predictions from the Bureau of Meteorology suggest warmer days and less of the wet stuff will persist as we head into autumn.
Autumn (March to May) rainfall is likely to be below average over the southern two-thirds of Australia.
March is likely to be hotter and drier than average across most of Australia.
Most of the country has a high chance of warmer days, with the likelihood exceeding 75 per cent across most of southern and eastern Australia.
The drier than average outlooks are likely a result of forecast higher than normal pressure across western and southern Australia, meaning fewer rain-bearing systems are likely to cross the coast.
The past two decades have seen autumn rainfall declines across much of the south. For example, 22 of the past 26 years have brought below-average rainfall to southeast Australia.
The temperature for January across the country was 0.77 degrees above average. It was an exceptionally warm month for New South Wales, especially the east, with the statewide mean maximum and minimum temperature fourth-highest on record for January and the mean temperature the third highest.
On February 12, the Hastings was among the hottest regions in the country with a record-breaking temperature of 47 degrees.
NSW experienced several back-to-back severe heatwaves during January, with many stations experiencing their warmest January night on record on the 14th or 18th. Many regions, including the Hastings, set records for the persistence of warm conditions, with extreme heat extending from December and continuing into February
NSW summer temperatures have increased by almost 1 degree since 1910, with large increases in the frequency of high temperature extremes and the intensity and duration of heatwaves observed since the late 1990s.
Rainfall was 41.6 per cent below average across NSW during January.
Rainfall was well below average in parts of the southeast, and the driest January for at least 20 years in some regions. Conditions have been persistently dry on eastern NSW since October 2016, with some regions recording less than half the average rainfall for this time of year.