A report of Australia's climate shows that last year was one of the hottest years ever, as well as one of the wettest.
Australia has just experienced the fourth hottest year on record, according to the Bureau of Meteorology's annual climate statement.
Sydney, Brisbane, Hobart and Darwin have all recorded their warmest year.
It has also been wet, with rainfall 17 per cent above average.
Head of climate monitoring at the Bureau of Meteorology, Dr Karl Braganza, says 2016 has been marked by extreme weather events from destructive East Coast low pressure systems to flooding rains at Uluru.
"Yeah 2016 will be remembered as a warm and wet year. We saw very dry and warm conditions and the warmest Autumn on record, and it was also our wettest May to September period across the country. And it was also a year characterised by very high sea surface temperatures right around the country."
The Bureau's weather snapshot shows that higher temperatures were recorded in every state and territory, making it the fourth-warmest year.
But a dry start to 2016 then shifted to a wet one.
Rainfall was well above average in central Australia, a trend which spread across the borders.
The Climate Council of Australia's Professor Will Steffen says that is a clear sign of the damaging impacts of climate change.
"This is just more evidence of the long-term trends that we're seeing climate change affecting our ecosystems, our infrastructure, and our way of life."
Notable 2016 weather events included ferocious bushfires in Western Australian and Tasmania in January, followed by unusually high rainfall in parts of central and South Australia.
And in June, there was crippling damage on the east coast, with flooding in NSW, Tasmania and Victoria.
Dr Braganza says the record temperatures saw coastal erosion swallow homes and businesses along Sydney's northern beaches.
"That was fed by record warmth again in the Tasman and Coral sea, and that system created havoc really from the NSW coast down to Tasmania. We saw significant coastal erosion in NSW, and we saw very significant record flooding in Tasmania and across northern Tasmania"
Six months on, the multi-million dollar erosion damage in the Sydney suburb of Collaroy has been almost completely cleaned up.
The local community says Australia's at-times unpredictable weather has given them a reality check.
"Yeah we'll be more on the lookout for east coast lows coming along and saying 'you know, we're gonna get a bit of a belting'."
"That was just a perfect storm, just a freak bit of mother nature."
The Great Barrier Reef suffered severe coral bleaching due to hotter-than-ever sea surface temperatures.
That has led to this warning from Professor Steffen.
"The only way we can start slowing and reversing, or stabilising this long-term trend is by getting emissions down. We have to get emissions down, deeply and rapidly, and that means around the world. But also, particularly here in Australia, we've got to take a lead because we're the custodian of the Great Barrier Reef."
Dr Braganza forecasts the next three months will also present some weather worries.
"So up until March, we're looking at higher chances of warmer and dryer conditions over the eastern half of the continent. We're still looking at good chances of tropical moisture and cooler conditions over the western half of the continent."
