For Australia, 2013 looks like being a "year of living extremely" if January is anything to go by.

The Bureau of Meteorology says January was the hottest ever month in just over a century of records.

Nationwide, the January average maximum temperature anomaly was 2.28 degrees, "a substantial increase" on the previous record of 2.17 degrees set in 1932.

And, thanks to the unusual scale of the massive heatwave that dominated the first half of January, all states and territories posted above-average temperatures, the bureau said.

This week's floods, of course, added to the extremes. The Queensland Premier, Campbell Newman, warned damage to the state's economy was $2.4 billion and rising, eclipsing the $2.388 billion bill from the huge flooding of 2011. Insurers don't think it will be that bad for them.