If you thought the last month was warm you were right.
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January was the hottest on record, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
Bureau senior climatologist Dr Andrew Watkins said the heat through January was unprecedented.
The mean temperature for January averaged across country exceeded 30 degrees.
Which is the first time that has occurred in any month.
"We saw heatwave conditions affect large parts of the country through most of the month, with records broken for both duration and also individual daily extremes," Dr Watkins said.
"The main contributor to this heat was a persistent high pressure system in the Tasman sea which was blocking any cold fronts and cooler air from impacting the south of the country.
"At the same time, we had a delayed onset to the monsoon in the north of the country which meant we weren't seeing cooler, moist air being injected from the north.
"The warming trend which has seen Australian temperatures increase by more than 1 degree in the last 100 years also contributed to the unusually warm conditions."
Key points from the summaries include:
- Australia has experienced its warmest month on record in terms of mean, maximum, and minimum temperatures. Rainfall was below average for most areas but the monsoon trough brought some significant totals to northern Queensland late in the month.
- New South Wales recorded its warmest January on record for mean, maximum, and minimum temperatures. The northeast of the state experienced one of the driest Januarys on record. Sydney had one of its warmest Januarys on record, with average rainfall.