1911-1916 Australian drought

The 1911–1916 Australian drought consisted of a series of droughts that affected various regions of Australia between the years of 1911 and 1916. Most of the dry spells during this period can be related to three El Niño events in 1911, 1913 and 1914, though rainfall deficiencies actually began in northern Australia before the first of these El Niños set in and did not ease in coastal districts of New South Wales until well after the last El Niño had firmly dissipated and trends toward very heavy rainfall developed in other areas of the continent.

The years before the drought had generally been had satisfactory rainfall and impressive crop yields throughout most of the continent except Gippsland, coastal districts of New South Wales and southeastern Queensland where the rainfall deficiencies of the Federation Drought had never disappeared at any point during the decade of the 1900s.

At the beginning of the year, a strong La Niña event was producing heavy rain over eastern Australia. January was the wettest on record in Sydney, and February was a phenomenally wet month in Victoria and southwestern New South Wales, with places like Pooncarie on the lower Darling River recording 190 millimetres (7.5 in) for the month. Averaged over Victoria, February 1911 stands as the third-wettest month since 1885 after October 1975 and February 1973. Heavy monsoonal rain drenched Queensland throughout the summer. These months, however, were virtually rainless in the southwestern quarter of the continent and quite dry in the Kimberley and Top End.

Early March saw exceptionally heavy rains in southern Victoria and eastern Tasmania: Melbourne's rainfall of 191 millimetres (7.5 in) remains a March record. However, in the Top End and Kimberley, drought was already established as Darwin had its driest March in 138 years of record with only 21 millimetres (0.83 in) as against an average of 290 millimetres (11 in). April saw some good late wet season rains in the north due to a severe tropical cyclone drenching Port Douglas with a daily fall of 801 millimetres (31.5 in) and promising rains in southwestern Australia.

However, despite the "big wet" continuing in southern Victoria through May and June, southwestern Australia and to lesser extent the settled parts of South Australia and southeast Queensland began to have major rainfall deficiencies in those months. By August dry conditions were, as is usual for El Niño years, general except in coastal districts of New South Wales and the southeast of Western Australia. Southwestern Australia was particularly hard-hit: wheat crops failed completely in many places and led to a revolution in water supply and farming techniques to cope with rainfalls lower than previously known. In the humid forest belt, 1911 was the driest year of the twentieth century at Margaret River and Cape Leeuwin and even the Warren River, the most nearly perennial river in all of WA, ceased to flow during the ensuing summer.

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