La Nina leads to third wettest year on record
The Bureau of Meteorology has confirmed 2011 was Australia's third-wettest year on record and the wettest year since 1970.
The Bureau's Annual Australian Climate Statement says 2011 was also the first cooler-than-average year since 2001.
Bureau of Meteorology climate monitoring manager Dr Karl Braganza says the rainfall was largely due to the influence of La Nina.
"It was a really interesting year re: extreme events and rainfall," Dr Braganza said.
"You have to go back to 1973/74 for a similar occurrence where we had prolonged La Nina conditions and really widespread flooding across the continent over a 24-month period.
"Typically when you get a really strong La Nina event, and that's measured by these hemispheric indicators across the Pacific, you almost always find flooding across northern and eastern Australia during those big events and at least one big tropical cyclone comes through."
However Australia is a vast country, and while last year recorded the nation's coolest autumn in 60 years, on the other side of the country temperatures soared beyond 49 degrees.
"Certainly in December, WA, the Pilbara region on three consecutive days broke maximum temperature records with temperatures above 49 for three days," Dr Braganza said.
Valerie Trent from Roebourne in the Pilbara says she had not realised it was so hot until the temperature passed 50 degrees at her house.
"I was walking along the pavement and my legs were burning and my eyes dried out behind my sunglasses," she said.
"It's just hot! It's very very hot and you just feel like everything's burning up. All my garden got burnt, my banana's got frizzled. It was very disappointing because everything just got sizzled up really."
The question is now whether these trends will continue.
South Australia has already recorded its hottest start to the year in more than a century and Victoria is also sweltering in heatwave conditions.
Dr Braganza says while La Nina's influence continues it is loosening its grip, and big floods aren't expected on the same scale this year.
"It's a weaker event this time round, compared to last summer, so we had those terrific floods at the end of 2010 and into 2011," he said.
"We might still get very heavy monsoonal rainfall. That can happen in any year in Australia, but probably the odds aren't on for the type of flooding we saw in the summer just gone."
The wet La Nina is expected to last until autumn this year, when the Pacific Ocean resets and a new weather pattern begins.