BOM records show our hottest day from December to February was 37.3 degrees Celcius, with January 31 the hottest of just 10 days to push the mercury over 35 degrees across the entire summer.

The average of our daily maximum temperatures for January was 31.9 degrees, against a longer term average of 34.4.

December's was 30.5, below the longer-term average for Forbes airport of 31.8 degrees.

There have been a few years where this has happened before: a look at the top temperatures on Bureau records shows 39.23 degrees was the hottest day in 2008; and 39.4 in 2000.

For comparable temperatures, you have to look at the Camp Street records: in 1995 our hottest day was 37.01 degrees and going all the way back to 1974 Forbes' top temperature was 36.51 for the year.

December and February were actually below average rainfall for Forbes airport statistics.

There was 43.4mm in the gauge in December (mean 51mm) and 7.4mm in February.

Of course that was on the back of Spring flooding, three times the monthly average in a whopping 172.6mm falling in November.

January was also extremely wet. A total 155mm was recorded at Forbes airport for the month, with a long-term average of 37.8mm.

Four inches of that total fell in two days, in the 48 hours to 9am January 8.

The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting wetter than average conditions will continue this Autumn "for large parts of Australia" with the rest of the country expecting a fairly normal season.

March to May (autumn) maximum temperatures are likely to be above median for south-west NSW, western and central Victoria.

Below median temperatures are likely for a very small area of eastern NSW (less than 40 per cent chance of above median).

Elsewhere, there are roughly equal chances of warmer or cooler days (chance of exceeding the median is close to 50 per cent).

Minimum temperatures for March to May are likely to be warmer than median Australia wide (chances are greater than 60 per cent).