Drought-hit regions of southern and eastern Australia got little if any relief during winter, with barely half the normal rainfall and the country still posting its warmest start to any year for daytime temperatures.
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| A dead stand of river red gums on a property owned by Garry and Leanne Hall on the Macquarie River, north of Warren. |
The Bureau of Meteorology's winter summary showed the country had its sixth-warmest June-August for maximum temperatures, while rainfall averages were the least - at 36.4 millimetres - since 2002. For the first eight months of 2019, maximums are running the hottest on record and mean temperatures the second-warmest.
"It was a very dry winter over the bulk of the continent," said Blair Trewin, the bureau's senior climatologist, adding that south-eastern Australia was on course for a third relatively dry April-September cool season in a row.
The Murray-Darling Basin, Australia's food bowl, had yet another poor season, with less than half its typical rain. The average of 48.4 millimetres was its fourth lowest in more than a century of records.
Read the story from The Age by Peter Hannam - “Drought deepens as 'very dry winter' combines with record heat.”
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