1979-1983 Eastern Australian drought

Between 1979 and 1983 almost all of eastern Australia was affected by a major drought.

Although in some places such as the South Coast the drought was almost continuous, in most of the affected region the major years of drought were 1980 and 1982.

The 1970s had been an exceptionally wet decade over eastern Australia, despite short-term droughts from April to August 1976 and June to December 1977. 1978 was especially wet in the southern coast districts of New South Wales and East Gippsland because southern low pressure systems consistently redeveloped over the east coast. Orbost's 1978 rainfall of 1,559 millimetres (61.4 in) is as much as 256 mm (10 inches) above its previous record from 1935. In the winter, unseasonal rains struck normally bone-dry areas of northern Australia, and the wet season arrived early in the north in October. Though the Wet was not abnormally powerful in November and December, southeastern Australia remained exceptionally wet.

The year 1979 began with extraordinarily hot conditions over southern Australia. Both livestock and wild animals perished in great numbers due to the heatwave, which saw places in northern South Australia regularly reach temperatures of at least 45 °C (113 °F) from 31 December 1978 to 15 January 1979. In Western Australia, the Nullarbor region settlements of Mundrabilla and Forrest both reached maxima of 49.8 °C (121.6 °F), the fourth-highest recorded temperatures in Australia, on 3 and 13 January 1979, respectively. Temperatures reached 40 °C (104 °F) in Sydney and in that summer's Ashes Test match, Australia's wicket keeper retired from heat exhaustion.

Rain fell heavily in the Mallee later in the month, making it a record wet month in many parts of western Victoria and far western New South Wales. The southeast corner, however, was already very dry. February and March saw a continuing powerful monsoon, but except for the Mallee in February and the east coast from Newcastle to Triabunna in March, southeastern Australia was dry. April had fairly normal rainfall except for continuing wet in Cape York Peninsula and dry conditions around Sydney and Hobart, where rainfall deficiencies were already acute.

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