If you felt the heat last year (2017) it might be because Australia felt its third-warmest year on record, coming in nearly a degree (0.95 degrees) above the 1961-to-1990 average.
Doctor Karl Braganza is the Head of Climate Monitoring at the Bureau of Meteorology.
f3808a BRAGANZA 10s
"This means that Australia has seen the five warmest years on record now, all since 2005. So the five warmest years have occurred in that time period."
He says the east coast of Australia delivered most of the above-average to highest-on-record temperatures.
f3808b BRAGANZA 11s
"Sydney, Hobart and Canberra saw daytime temperatures that were in the top three warmest on record, while Brisbane saw temperatures that were equal to last year, 2016, as the warmest on record."
South Australia's far north town of Tarcoola [tah-COOL-uh] sweltered through the hottest day of the year, with the mercury hitting 48.2 degrees in early February.
March, July, August, October and December were the warmest months, ranking in the top 10 for the warmest months on record.
And sea surface temperatures were no exeption, with Dr Braganza explaining that ocean temperatures delivered the 8th warmest year on record for waters surrounding Australia.
f3808c BRAGANZA 10s
"The warmth was particularly notable around the eastern half of the continent with cooler waters occurring only around the southwestern part of WA."
While swimmers may have enjoyed the warmer waters, it didn't bring good news for Australia's treasured Great Barrier Reef.
For the second consecutive year, prolonged high ocean temperatures over the Great Barrier Reef over summer and early autumn caused mass coral bleaching.
And as the weather bureau's Karl Braganza says, it was the first back-to-back summer bleaching event on record.
f3808d BRAGANZA 24s
"Mass bleaching events weren't recorded prior to the 1980s over the reefs and certainly in the old tradition...the traditional owners, there is no real recording of bleaching events, and we haven't seen bleaching events that were back-to-back - one year followed by another - and that is what we saw in 2016 and 2017."
Across the year as a whole, the eastern states were generally drier, with the western interior part of the continent wetter.
Umbrellas came in handy in Western Australia, where they were drenched by the ninth-wettest year on record.
He says one of the more notable weather events for 2017 would have to be Cyclone Debbie in March and April.
It ripped through Queensland bringing heavy rainfall and flooding to parts of the state and into New South Wales.
He says other parts of the country did not go unnoticed.
f3808e BRAGANZA 17s
"November saw a prolonged period of warmth to Victoria and Tasmania and that was associated with slow moving high pressure systems and the very warm sea surface temperatures around the coast at that time. The other notable one is the May-September period which saw the warmest daytime temperatures for the Territory."
