The Australian summer of 2018/19 marked the return of the Angry Summer with record-breaking heat and other destructive extreme weather events.

The summer was characterised by prolonged, continental-scale heatwaves, hot days, drought conditions in eastern Australia and bushfires throughout Australia, particularly in Queensland and Tasmania and parts of Western Australia, Victoria and New South Wales.

Bushfire seasons started much earlier, lasted longer, and burned in areas that would not be expected to burn, despite there not being an El Niño event. Heavy rainfall and flooding inundated northern Queensland in late January and early February.

KEY FINDINGS: