Ltd. 1984, pp 567-568 Bureau of Metrology, Climate education - The Federation Drought 1895-1902, website viewed 5 April 2011. Rainfall in most of the Murray–Darling Basin was substantially below average in 2017, 2018 and 2019. It began in the mid-1890s with the most extreme conditions in late 1901 and 1902. Indeed, in southwestern Victoria many stations had their highest daily rainfall on record, resulting in flash flooding. South Australian Branch. Experts say that climate change has made Australia's bushfires more ferocious and longer due to hotter, drier conditions. By August 1940, the Nepean Dam in New South Wales was empty; water restrictions were imposed in Brisbane in October. The lowest point was reached in February 1983, with record-low rainfall in parts of Tasmania, and virtually none in Victoria. As the world’s driest inhabited continent, Australia’s history is peppered with dry spells. Extensive areas experienced record or near-record low rainfall from April to December. Only the Kimberley, the North Coast of New South Wales and Western Tasmania remained below average. To control the squatters and encourage closer settlement, the eastern states introduced land reforms in the 1860s. However, it also had more periods of intense dryness. There's a poignant display of the cyclone’s impact at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. The monsoon in Queensland was again very poor apart from the Wet Tropics and Cape York, and in February an extremely active and vigorous monsoon low over inland South Australia brought further east not rain but a disastrous heatwave with Melbourne reporting its hottest February temperature (43.1 °C (109.6 °F)) until 1983. One of the strongest positive Indian Ocean Dipoles on record was a substantial contributor to the dry conditions in the second half of 2019. Over most of Queensland, dry conditions were virtually unbroken from 1897. As well as bushland, thousands of homes were destroyed as many of the ferocious fires merged into "mega-fires" and created their own lightning storms. Though often thought of as a long drought, until the record dry year of 1902 the period was actually one of a number of very dry spells interspersed with wetter weather. The Federation Drought is thought to be one of the most severe droughts in European recorded Australian history. The monsoon in Queensland was again very poor apart from the Wet Tropics and Cape York, and in February an extremely active and vigorous monsoon low over inland South Australia brought further east not rain but a disastrous heatwave with Melbourne reporting its hottest February temperature (43.1 °C (109.6 °F)) until 1983. A very hot November with temperatures reaching 40 °C (104 °F) made the situation critical in some areas. It was responsible for the death of 435 people. It ended squatter-dominated pastoralism in New South Wales and Queensland, as bank foreclosures and the resumption of leases led to the partition of large stations for more intensive settlement and agricultural use. Substantial rain fell over almost all the drought area, with many record March totals. By November, dry soil in northwest Victoria was blown away as dust, and water restrictions were imposed in Melbourne. All three April−September periods ranked in the 10 driest on record for the Murray–Darling Basin and for New South Wales. It’s thought at least 100 people perished, many of them from indigenous communities. By April 1944, northern Victoria was carting water, and failure of the winter–spring rains led to failure of the wheat crop. The Category 4 storm killed 30 people and destroyed most of the town of Mackay with its destructive winds. Oatlands recorded a temperature as low as −12 °C (10 °F) during one of these outbreaks, and snow fell in Hobart. The Federation Drought began in 1895 and reached its peak in 1901 and 1902. Despite a very powerful monsoon in the north, heavy rains therefrom during February only broke the drought temporarily, as El Niño developed later that year. Pictured here is a drought-ravaged sheep farm in Coonabarabran, NSW. Mars-like scenes confronted Sydneysiders on 23 September 2009 when a colossal dust cloud engulfed the city and surrounding areas. The east coast is normally well watered by moisture from weather driven by the Tasman and Coral seas. Though Sydney had heavy rainfall in January and February 1895, from March that year drought began spreading widely across New South Wales and Victoria.