Australia recorded its driest spring, intensifying the nation's drought, while daytime temperatures for the whole year are running at the hottest on record.

The Bureau of Meteorology's spring summary showed Australia averaged just 27.4 millimetres of rain across the season, almost two-thirds below the long-run average. Western Australia had its driest spring, while NSW had its driest since 2002, and the Murray-Darling basin had the least August-October rainfall since 1982.

Dust storms were a regular feature of this spring across inland NSW and Queensland. Credit:Nick Moir

"For Australia as a whole, it was the second-driest January–November on record, and amongst the three driest on record for New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory," the bureau said.

Blair Trewin, senior bureau climatologist, said the standout feature was not just how dry it was over large areas of Australia but also that some records were broken by large margins.