Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Treasurer Scott Morrison may not have got round to factoring the potential for serious drought into their economic calculations, but risks of a more severe dry are rising as rainfall levels across the country fall well short of expectations.

Extreme weather events driven by an El Nino in the Pacific and an emerging positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) risks delivering a double whammy to a continent that is, in any case, bone dry across much of Queensland, south-west Victoria, and south-west Western Australia.