Australia is a big country with a wide variety of climate zones, from the tropics in the north to the arid interior and temperate regions in the south. It’s also a land of extremes, enduring epic droughts and biblical floods and every other severe weather event in between. Unsurprisingly Australia holds many weather-related records including the world’s longest heatwave and the strongest gust of wind. Here we’ve gathered together those records – and other intriguing facts – that reflect the unique climate of this intriguing continent.
Australia is one of the continents most affected by El Nino and La Nina, the destructive weather phenomena that are part of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation that pushes weather patterns back and forth across the Pacific Ocean. El Nino brings heatwaves and drought to Australia. La Nina brings heavy rain and devastating floods. These weather phenomena bring extreme weather conditions to all parts of the world, but they are mainly felt in Australia. There have been 27 droughts in eastern Australia since European settlement and 160,708 floods in the last 10 years alone.
Australia is the driest inhabited continent in the world, with 70% of it either arid or semi-arid land and more than 80% of the continent experiencing an annual rainfall of less than 24 inches (600mm) and some places near Lake Eyre in South Australia receiving less that three inches (81mm). The country’s extraordinary aridity is the result of a unique combination of cold ocean currents off the west coast, meaning there is little evaporation to form rain clouds; and the Great Dividing Range running down Australia's east coast, preventing rain from penetrating far inland.
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Drought is an enduring, regular feature of the Australian landscape, with the continent spanning the latitudes of a subtropical high-pressure belt that creates dry, stable air and usually clear skies. Historical records show that southeastern Australia experienced 27 drought years between 1788 and 1860 and at least 10 major droughts between 1860 and 2000. The Millennium Drought (2001–09) is regarded as the most severe and the Federation Drought (1895-1903) the most devastating. In 2017, drought set in again across parts of New South Wales and Queensland, leading to the devastating bushfires that ravaged the east coast in the summer of 2019/2020.
The Federation Drought between 1895-1903 took its name because it coincided with Australia’s Federation. It also triggered another fundamental change in Australia – the end of squatter-dominated pastoralism. Before the drought, 28 million hectares were occupied by 2,000 squatters on Crown land. Enormous drought-related stock losses led to foreclosures and the resumption of leases that saw large stations partitioned for more intensive settlement and agricultural use, breaking the stranglehold squatters had on Australian agriculture.
Dust storms are becoming increasingly common in Australia, particularly after periods of severe and widespread drought. Fine particles of dust are picked up by wind and blown towards the coast and Australia’s big cities. The storms reduce visibility, of course, but the tiny particles are a health danger to humans, and increasingly, Australia’s fragile coral reefs. Not only does silt in the water block necessary sunlight to the reefs, it also spawns toxic algal blooms that thrive from the added nutrients. Scientists have that noted fungal outbreaks in banana crops also increase within days of a passing dust storm.
The Australian government’s chief scientific body, the CSIRO, estimated that the 2009 dust storm carried 16 million tonnes of dust from the deserts of Central Australia and dumped it into Sydney Harbour and the Tasman Sea. The dust storm swept across NSW and Queensland from 22 September to 24 September and at its height was depositing 75,000 tonnes of dust per hour off the NSW coast north of Sydney. Flights were diverted and ferries cancelled as a blanket of red dust shrouded most of the city, giving an end-of-days vibe to the city’s iconic Harbour Bridge and Opera House.
These are the worst weather disasters in Australia's history...
Drive across the outback in Australia and chances are you’ll spot a dust devil dancing across the spinifex. The local aboriginals call them willy willies and tell their children that they contain a scary spirit that will whisk them away if they misbehave. These mini-tornados feature in similar folktales all around the world, but the colour of an Australian dust devil – bright red, like the outback soil – somehow makes it all seem more probable.
Home to luscious rainforests and the stunning Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park (pictured), it comes as no surprise that Tasmania is the wettest state in Australia. In 2021, it averaged 54.25 inches (1,378mm) of rain, with precipitation recorded on 150 days of the year. The title of wettest town in Australia goes to Tully in north Queensland, with staggering annual average rainfall of 165.5 inches (4,204mm). Nearby Babinda claims it gets that much too, but nothing can beat the 311 inches (7,900mm) that fell on Tully in 1950.
The 2010 La Nina event was the strongest since 1973 and brought record rains and floods to Queensland. December 2010 saw the average rainfall level hitting 15.93 inches (404.7mm), the wettest on record. Most of the state’s major rivers burst their banks, damaging infrastructure, destroying crops and flooding an area in central east Queensland the size of Germany and France combined. Thirty people lost their lives and an estimated $AU2.38 billion (£1.2bn) of damage was caused.
Researchers in Australia have found that stories passed down through the generations by the country’s Aboriginal peoples accurately match real-life weather and climate events. One community tells of a time when northeastern Australia’s shoreline reached all the way to the Great Barrier Reef, placing the story’s roots at as many as 12,600 years ago. Stories from 18 different Aboriginal communities accurately describe coastal flooding in their regions at the end of the last ice age.
Analysis by the Insurance Council of Australia in 2019 revealed that Townsville in Far North Queensland is the most flood-affected city in Australia. The study looked at Federal electoral areas around the country and found that Herbert, the seat that includes Townsville, came out top with 55,460 land parcels exposed to flooding. Indeed, 16 of the top 20 affected seats were in Queensland, making it easily Australia’s most flood-prone state. The study was conducted after the region was hit by a “one-in-500-year” flood event that saw 25,664 claims made costing $AU1.04 billion (£530m).
The Gundagai flood of 1852 is regarded as the deadliest flood in Australia’s history with between 80-100 people perishing. But the death toll would have been much higher if not for the heroic efforts of local Wiradjuri men Yarri and Jacky Jacky. Wiradjuri men were renowned for their skilful use of bark canoes and over three days, the men navigated the treacherous waters of the flooded Murrumbidgee River plucking 69 survivors from trees. In 2017, on the 165th anniversary of the flood, a bronze sculpture of the two men was unveiled in Gundagai to commemorate the men and their bravery.
Most of the time Australia’s massive sandstone monolith Uluru sits glowing and baking in the heart of Australia’s arid 'Red Centre'. But when rare heavy rains come, its character transforms. Its colour changes from dark burgundy to shining silver and its deep crevices turn into raging waterfalls, cascading down the sides of the giant rock, replenishing the semi-permanent waterholes at Kantju Gorge and Mutitjulu. It’s one of nature’s great sights, accompanied by the soundtrack of trilling frogs, suddenly full of life.
Cyclones are the Aussie version of a hurricane and are a regular feature of summer in northern Australia. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology estimates that at least 13 form each year, with at least half of them hitting the region between Broome and Exmouth in northwest Western Australia. The rest generally make landfall in the Northern Territory and Far North Queensland, although cyclones have been recorded as far south as Queensland’s Gold Coast and Northern NSW (The Great Gold Coast Cyclone of 1954) and southwest Western Australia (Cyclone Alby in 1978).
Cyclone Mahina is generally considered the most powerful and deadly cyclone in Australia’s recorded history. The Category 5 storm struck Princess Charlotte Bay on Cape York Peninsula late on the evening of 4 March 1899, just as eight schooners and more than 100 luggers had anchored to unload pearl shells. The storm killed over 400 people, most of them divers and seamen from Southeast Asia, the Torres Strait and Pacific islands working for the Thursday Island pearling fleet. More than half the fleet was destroyed. At its height, Mahina hit an intensity of 880 hectopascals, making it one of the world’s most intense cyclones of all time.
Cyclone Mahina was also responsible for the most substantial storm surge to hit Australia. The final high-water line was estimated at 48 feet (14.6m) and is claimed by some as a world record. Debris was found miles away, including the wreck of the Zanoni (pictured), which was found washed up at Boulder Rocks off Cape Melville. There were also reports that Indigenous people were swept out to sea and witnesses reported finding dolphin carcasses washed up on land.
Cyclone Mahini was named by Clement Wragge, chief of the Queensland weather bureau. Wragge was the first person in Australia – and possibly the world – to give proper names to tropical storms. Initially he named them in alphabetical order, using the Greek alphabet. Then he used characters from Greek and Roman mythology, next female names linked to South Sea Island cultures, and finally politicians – usually the ones who annoyed him. Occasionally he used the name of someone he admired, like soprano Dame Nellie Melba.
No other cyclone is wedged deeper into the Australian psyche than Cyclone Tracy. The monster Category 4 cyclone tore into Darwin in the early hours of Christmas morning in 1974, leaving half the city’s 43,000 inhabitants immediately homeless. Sixty-four lives were lost and such was the destruction that three-quarters of the entire population were evacuated. Immortalised in the Hoodoo Gurus’ song Tojo, Cyclone Tracy is also the most costly. The insurance payout totalled $AU200 million, the equivalent to $AU837 million (£500m/US$637m) today adjusting for inflation.
On 10 April 1996 the highest ever wind speed was recorded when Tropical Cyclone Olivia passed over tiny Barrow Island, 30 miles (50km) off the northwest coast of Western Australia, just north of Exmouth. An unmanned weather station measured a 253 miles per hour (408km/h) wind gust, eclipsing the previous record of 231 miles per hour (371.8km/h) measured at a weather station at Mount Washington, New Hampshire, USA, back in 1934. A meteorologist was on duty at Mount Washington at the time however, so it still holds the all-time record wind gust from a manned weather station.
According to the Australian government, heatwaves have caused more deaths since 1890 than bushfires, cyclones, earthquakes, floods and severe storms combined, making it Australia’s deadliest natural hazard. Since European settlement, there have been 11 heatwaves which have resulted in significant loss of life. The heatwave that occurred between 1895-1896 covered most of the country and killed 435 people. The heatwave that hit Victoria and South Australia in 2009 took 432 lives. If global temperatures continue to rise as predicted, heatwaves in Australia will become more frequent, hotter and last longer, causing more and more deaths.
The actual highest temperature ever recorded in Australia was 53.1°C (127.6°F) at Cloncurry in Queensland on 16 January 1889. However, that is no longer considered to be the ‘official’ highest temperature because the equipment used to record it was not up to today’s standards. Instead, the official record is held by Oodnadatta in South Australia, with the considerably cooler 50.7°C (123.3°F) recorded on 2 January 1960.
Marble Bar in the Pilbara region of northwestern Western Australia is known as 'the hottest town in Australia' with an average summer temperature of 34°C (93.2°F). It can also lay claim to the longest heatwave in the world: 160 days between 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924, where temperatures reached (and often exceeded) 37.8°C (100°F). It’s a record recognised by the Guinness Book of Records and still stands today, 100 years later.
South Australia is the country’s hottest state so it comes as no surprise that the highest temperature in an Australian capital city was recorded in Adelaide when temperatures topped an extraordinary 46.6°C (115.8°F) on 24 January 2019. The record temperature caused a bit of a headache for the Red Lion pub in the suburb of Elizabeth North. Staff had promised to hand out free beers if the mercury breached 45°C (113°F) and by 1pm there was a huge queue out the door and around the block, with concerned locals handing out water to those lining up so they didn’t pass out with heat exhaustion while waiting for their free West End Draught.
In 2014 Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) produced the country’s first national definition of a ‘heatwave’. It was defined as ‘three or more days where maximum and minimum temperatures are unusually high for a location’. That meant temperatures that constituted a heatwave in Tasmania, Australia’s coolest state, would not be the same as a hotter state like South Australia, recognising how heat affects vulnerable people, agriculture and infrastructure differently in various regions.
Australians flocked to the beaches in record numbers to try and cool down as the country experienced its hottest summer ever between December 2012 to January 2013. Mean temperatures were 1.11°C (2°F) above normal and 0.13°C (0.23°F) above the previous record set in 1997–98. Every state and territory except Tasmania recorded a summer that ranks in the 10 warmest on record. And Sydney experienced its hottest day ever on 18 January 2013 – a blistering 45.8°C (114.44°F).
In January 2013 Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) was faced with a dilemma. The country had been experiencing a record-breaking two-week-long heatwave and on 8 January the forecast was for temperatures in excess of 50°C (122°F). The trouble was that the scale for its colour-coded heat maps only went up to 50°C (122°F). Two new colours were quickly added to the legend and have been in use ever since – a dark purple for 50°C to 52°C (122°F to 125.6°F) and a lighter purple for 52°C to 54°C (125.6°F to 129.2°F). The BoM is hoping it won’t have to add more colours anytime soon.
On 7 February 2009 devastating bushfires swept through Victoria taking 173 lives, killing more than a million wild and domesticated animals and burning over 450,000 hectares of land. It became known as Black Saturday, with Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard describing it as a “tragedy beyond belief, beyond precedent and beyond words”. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has since said that the record-breaking temperatures of the 2009 heatwave and unprecedented dryness “set the scene for these horrific fires – and made them exceptionally challenging to fight.”
Don’t let Australians tell you otherwise. It does get cold here. And with the general lack of central heating in Aussie homes, you’ll feel it. The lowest temperature ever recorded was -23.0°C (-9.4°F) on 29 June 1994 at Charlotte Pass in New South Wales’ Snowy Mountains. Canberra holds the record for lowest temperature recorded in a capital city. The mercury dropped to -10°C (14°F) in the capital on 11 July 1971. It gets cold in the deserts too. During winter, night-time temperatures in the outback range between -2-3°C (26-28°F) sometimes getting as low as -7.5°C (18.5°F).
Snow in Australia is usually confined to the alpine regions of New South Wales and Victoria. But on the odd occasion that cold air drifts north from Antarctica, there have been cold snaps that have brought snow to the outback and even the tropics. These extreme snow events are rare and have only occurred in 1958, 1965, 1986, 2005 and 2015. The 1965 event was the most severe, causing snow to fall as far north as Eungella, near Mackay in tropical Queensland and as central as Longreach in Queensland and in the ranges near Alice Springs.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have lived in Australia for at least 50,000 years and have incredible knowledge of various plants and animals and how their behaviour can predict the weather. The Wardaman people know the dry season is over when march-flies appear in September or October. The Walabunnba people know a lot of rain is on its way when the mirrlarr (rain bird) calls out. The D'harawal people see the flowering of the boo'kerrikin (Acacia decurrens) and know that the cold, windy weather is over and gentle spring rains are on the way.
Now read on for more extreme weather records that have just been broken