Drought spreads following hot, dry spring

Drought conditions are spreading across southern and eastern Australia following a dry spring with record-breaking heat.

The Bureau of Meteorology's latest drought statement, issued on Thursday, said most of eastern Australia and the Top End had below to very much below-average rainfall in November.

Rain totals in the lowest 10 per cent of records occurred in most of northern Tasmania, most of the Cape York Peninsula and scattered areas in east and central parts of Queensland and NSW.

Low rainfall has combined with the warmest spring since consistent national records began in 1910, the statement says.

"Rainfall has been below average across large parts of eastern Australia for most of 2014; rainfall deficiencies across parts of the east have been exacerbated by particularly dry conditions during the past two months," it said.

"Overall, rainfall during the second half of the southern growing season (July to November) has been below to very much below-average across most of southeast Australia, coinciding with record-warm temperatures."

Over the past five months, serious and severe rainfall deficiencies (rainfall in the lowest 10 per cent and 5 per cent of records respectively) have continued through agricultural regions of South Australia, western Victoria, southern NSW, the Top End and large parts of Queensland.

But November rain eased dry spells around Carnarvon and Giles in Western Australia, parts of the Northern Territory and western Queensland.

In the past year, the most serious and severe rain shortages have spread over a wider area of western Victoria, northeastern NSW and southeast Queensland.

Vast areas of central and western Queensland, northeastern SA, northern NSW and southeastern NT had serious or severe rainfall deficiencies in the past two years.

These have worsened slightly in western Victoria, southeastern SA, and part of the southern coastal Gascoyne around Shark Bay in WA, the statement said.