From the Barrington to the sea, parts of the Hunter have registered the lowest annual rainfall on record while other areas had the lowest December rainfall ever.
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Nobbys headland, which has an average December rainfall of 79.8mm, registered 5.2mm last month. The figure was just short of the record 4.6mm recorded in 1874.
The Bureau of Meteorology's annual summary won't be published until January 9, however, it is already known that 2019 was the driest year in Australia since 2005 - the height of the Millennium Drought - and among the hottest in 161 years of record keeping.
Many of the records have stood since the Federation Drought of the early 1900s or the infamous droughts of the 1940s and early 1980s.
The bureau has advised changes in technology and the location of some weather stations make it difficult to accurately compare some contemporary and historic readings.
The sobering rainfall trend was repeated across the region throughout 2019 with Port Stephens about 20-30 per cent below average, the Lower Hunter was 40-50 per cent below and the Upper Hunter 60 per cent
Scone set a new low for annual rainfall with 275 mm, surpassing the previous record of 301mm recorded in 1980. Likewise Gloucester which received 466mm, surpassed the previous record of 498mm set in 1964.
Paterson recorded its second lowest rainfall with 579.4mm, which was only surpassed by 483.4mm which was recorded in 1980.
Nobbys recorded its fourth driest year on record with 680 mm. The record was set in 1980 when 596.9mm fell followed by 1905 (641.9mm) and 1957 (668.2mm).
Williamtown, which received 729.4 mm. The record was set in 1980 when 541mm was recorded followed by 1965 (686.5mm) and 1958 (703mm).
Williamtown recorded its driest December on record with 0.8mm, surpassing the previous record of 14.2mm set in 1986.
Paterson also set a new December record with 2mm, surpassing the previous record of 5.1mm set in 2005.
Gloucester recorded 7.2mm, the lowest reading since the record of 2.6mm set in 1986.
While strictly not a record, the 2mm that fell in Scone in December was only surpassed by no rain in December 1941 and 1.3mm that fell in December 1918.
The annual rainfall figures follow-on from a particularly hot and dry winter across the Hunter.
Murrurundi received 34.8mm of rain between June and August last year, breaking the 1888 record of 35.6mm. The average winter rainfall for the town is 191.9mm.
Scone received 26.8mm, breaking the previous record of 33.2mm set in 1994. Merriwa, which has a winter average of 107.6mm recorded 23.8mm.
Veteran sheep and cattle farmer Brian Hunt who lives at Sandy Creek confirmed 2019 had been driest year ever recorded at his property.
"No one has ever seen anything like it. 1965 was has always been the year that we used to talk about but last year was worse," he said.
Like most farmers, Mr Hunt has been progressively destocking over the past 18 months.
"To be honest it's pretty depressing. We have got 14 dams on this property and only two of them have any water left," he said.
Bureau of Meteorology head of long-range forecasts Andrew Watkins said one of the strongest positive Indian Ocean Dipole IOD events on record was responsible for the lack of rain across Australia.
"A positive IOD means we have cooler than average water pooling off Indonesia, and this means we see less rain-bearing weather systems, and warmer than average temperatures for large parts of the country," Dr Watkins said.
"The positive IOD means we're also expecting a delayed onset for the northern monsoon, one of the key drivers for tropical rainfall during the summer months.
"At this stage we're expecting the onset of the northern monsoon by mid-summer, which should see the odds for closer to average rainfall increasing from January and into February."