Australia sweats through the hottest March on record

Australia has just experienced the hottest March on record, capping off the hottest first quarter of the year ever recorded.

The national mean temperature for March was 2.13 degrees above average, and the January to March quarter was 0.88 degrees hotter than the average.

People enjoying Bondi on a hot Sunday afternoon in March. It was the sixth-hottest March on record for NSW.Credit: Edwina Pickles

Bureau of Meteorology senior climatologist Blair Trewin said the new records were "quite significant".

"That's a big margin to be breaking those sorts of records by," he said.

"The December to March period is even more of a standout in that sense, given we had a record nationally in December, we had a record January, we had a record March, and February was also in the top few."

One of the standout features of March and the past four months in general was the fact it was hot everywhere, Dr Trewin said.

"[We] had above average temperatures in March over 99 per cent of the country," he said.

Australia has experienced its hottest first quarter on record.Credit: Bureau of Meteorology

Parts of Australia recorded long stretches of hot days over the past four months, with Rabbit Flat in the NT, north-west of Alice Springs, recording 115 consecutive days of 39 degrees or higher.

"It was above 39 every day from the start of December until last week, and that's actually the longest run of such hot days that's ever been recorded anywhere in Australia," Dr Trewin said.

It was the sixth-warmest March on record for NSW, with north-eastern parts of the state experiencing hotter than average days and nights.

While rainfall in NSW was close to average for March, Dr Trewin said rainfall was still tracking "significantly below average" for the year so far.

"Rainfall for the first quarter of the year was about 41 per cent below average, and that's actually almost exactly the same as the first quarter of last year, so we've now had two dry starts to the year in a row," he said.

Nationally rainfall was "quite variable", Dr Trewin said, and was in fact one of the factors influencing the long hot spell, with a weaker than usual monsoon season in northern parts of Australia.

Despite tropical cyclone Trevor and the flooding rain experienced by north Queensland, Dr Trewin said it was dryer in the NT and WA, which meant less moisture got into the interior of Australia.

While temperatures have begun to cool as April begins, the senior climatologist said the seasonal outlook was predicting a high chance of continued above-average temperatures in the April to June quarter.

"That doesn't necessarily mean record temperatures," he said.

"Certainly, the forecast for the next week or so is for consistently above average temperatures."