Australia Weather News

Figures from the weather bureau show parts of central Victoria endured one of the driest springs on record.

The bureau said spring this year was the warmest ever recorded in Victoria and the sixth driest in 106 years.

Bendigo, Castlemaine and Redesdale were among the centres to set a new record for average maximum daily temperatures.

Woodend had its driest spring since the drought year of 1982.

Elsewhere in central Victoria, rainfall totals were generally about half of the long-term average.

Kerang's spring rainfall of 42 millimetres was the lowest recorded in the region and about 40 per cent of the normal total.

Loddon Shire Mayor Neil Beattie is a grain grower in the Boort district.

He said many local dryland farmers had finished their grain harvest well ahead of schedule, thanks to the dry weather.

"The extremely dry spring and that heatwave - that four-day heatwave, which I have never seen in my farming career - that sort of weather in October pretty much frazzled [crops], hence an early harvest," he said.

"Some of the yields have been okay though, it's not a complete disaster."

He said most growers were able to salvage something from the season, despite the damaging heatwave.