According to the Bureau of Meteorology, much of Victoria has had a drier-than-normal 2023.
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Despite recent rains through November and early December, the Bureau's year-to-date summary has determined that from January to November, rainfall was below average for many parts of Victoria.
"It's been drier than average across much of the south-west and central districts and East Gippsland, along with parts of the Mallee and the Wimmera districts," Bureau senior climatologist Jonathon Pollock said.
"It's been pretty close to average in most other areas."
Maximum temperatures were also warmer than average for most of the state.
Minimum temperatures had been much warmer than average across most of the southern half of Victoria, while it was closer to average in the north-west.
Mr Pollock said there were a couple of seasons in Victoria that significantly "stood out this year", like winter, which was the second warmest on record since 1910 from mean temperatures.
"There were some interesting months," he said.
"It was the seventh-wettest June on record for Victoria, and also the fifth-warmest for minimum temperatures.
"Spring was also a bit unusual - it was our 10th-warmest spring on record for Victoria for mean temperatures, but September was really the stand out month there.
"Victoria had its driest September on record going back to 1900 and also the warmest September on record for maximum temperatures."
The year was also notable for an El Nino determination, with early signs of something potentially developing in autumn.
Mr Pollock said it wasn't until winter that sea surface temperatures strengthened enough to exceed El Nino thresholds, and spring was when the atmosphere started to couple with those anomalies to establish an event.
"While that was going on, we had a positive Indian Ocean Dipole that popped up in mid-August, it looks to have peaked around October, and it's starting to decline a bit now," he said.
"The records used for the IOD Index don't go back as far as some rainfall or temperature records, but it looks as though it's the second strongest going back to 2001 just behind the really strong event of 2019.
"The combination of a positive IOD and El Nino partially explains why Victoria had a dry September."
Spring was looking dry across large parts of south-east Australia up until the very end of the season, but that trend turned around quickly, especially for East Gippsland.
A record rainfall event in October, plus rainfall during the last few weeks of November, meant the region was wetter than average for spring.
But despite the rain, other regions still experienced drier times.
"The south-western quarter of the state was drier than average and a lot of the north was pretty close to average," Mr Pollock said.
"Looking back at the observations for spring, you can see that dry pattern across a lot of southern Australia and across Tasmania, but for parts of eastern Australia, it's a bit more mixed."
Naringal East beef producer Ben Boyd said the south-west had more consistent rain earlier on.
"We had a real-wet, early autumn, a fairly-wet winter, and then a dry spring around us into the early summer," he said.
"The season's been pretty good though with us getting good silage and hay quality.
"We sold big, heavy cows early in winter, which enabled us to have a bit more feed for the spring."
