Last year was among the top five warmest years in Australian history, the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has said in its annual report.

Temperatures were 0.83 degrees Celsius above the long-term average, the report said.

It also noted rainfall was well below average across several areas of Australia — including a large area of inland Queensland, where after three consecutive poor wet seasons long-term drought continued.

Key points: 2015 among the top five warmest years in Australian history

2015 among the top five warmest years in Australian history El Nino weather pattern was largely behind the hot, dry conditions

El Nino weather pattern was largely behind the hot, dry conditions BoM says warm weather will continue into first half of 2016

Drought also increased throughout areas of Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, the report found.

Karl Braganza, climate monitoring manager with the BoM, said the El Nino weather pattern was largely behind the hot, dry conditions in 2015.

"It's often dry in Australia during an El Nino event," he said.

"The other thing El Nino does is elevates the global surface temperature around the planet as well."

The World Meteorological Organisation has said it was extremely likely that 2015 would be recorded as the hottest year on record globally, when temperatures were averaged out.

"Typically, El Nino tends to be warmer than other years globally, and when you combine that with the global warming trend - so an increase of about a degree over the last century - that's when you start to see records broken, which is what we saw in 1997-98 and what we've seen in 2015 as well," Dr Braganza said.

"Not all parts of the globe are going to record their hottest year when the global temperature comes in as the hottest year on record.

"Some parts of the global will be cooler and some will be warmer."

'Reduced frequency of cooler weather'

Some notable cold weather did occur during 2015.

Queensland shivered through a cold snap that brought an unexpected snowfall, and Canberrans experienced a particularly cold start to July.

But Dr Braganza said that was all part of the variation expected in weather.

"What we're really seeing is a reduced frequency of that cooler weather," he said.

"So we're still getting cold weather, and occasionally we're still breaking cold weather records, but the rate that we're doing that is much less compared to incidences of extreme heat and record-breaking heat."

Snowfall on the Australian ski resorts was well below the average, the report said.

David Karoly, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Melbourne, said while El Nino played a part, climate change was largely responsible for the top-five result for 2015.

"In Australia in 2015, most of the long-term warmth is primarily due to climate change ... and then particularly in the latter half of the year El Nino has been the dominant factor," he said.

He said computer models of weather, run both with and without a change in greenhouse gases, showed that such warm temperatures were 10 times more likely once the climate changing greenhouse gases were included.

The El Nino weather pattern is expected to wane by winter. But Dr Braganza said warm weather would continue into the first half of 2016.

"Importantly, it's generally the year after an El Nino event that's the warm one globally. So while 2015 set a record, going from historical analyses you'd expect 2016 to be as least as warm if not warmer."

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