Tasmania records driest summer in 40 years as La Niña ‘swings the wind around’

The view over Hobart from Mount Wellington on a sunny day. As La Niña has sent more rain to the Australian mainland, Tasmania has endured a hot, dry summer. Photograph: Genevieve Vallee/Alamy

While Queensland and New South Wales have been hit with historic rainfall and floods, Tasmania has endured its driest summer in 40 years.

The island state’s west and south-west – both sparsely populated and typically wet – recorded their lowest levels of rainfall on record, the Bureau of Meteorology said.