SPRING was hot and dry in the Wimmera, with parts of the region recording their driest spring in more than 30 years.
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Bureau of Meteorology data showed Longerenong, Yanac, Dimboola and Balmoral all had the driest spring since 1982.
Longerenong's rainfall data showed 32.4 millimetres and the average for spring is 114 millimetres.
Yanac had 35.4mm and the average is 111.4mm, Dimboola had 32.4mm and the average is 112.6mm and Balmoral had 70.4mm and the average is 166.1mm.
Ararat's daily average was 21.5 degrees and the spring average is 21.9 degrees.
The previous hottest spring for all three towns was in 2006.
Nhill had 28.4mm for spring, which was 34 per cent of the season's average, Horsham 36mm which was 36 per cent, Stawell 48.6mm, which was 38 per cent and Warracknabeal 44.7mm, which was 40 per cent.
Longerenong, Ararat and Warracknabeal all record its hottest spring on record.
Warracknabeal's average daily maximum temperature was 25 degrees and the long-term average for spring is 21.9 degrees.
Longerenong's daily average was 24.4 degrees and the spring average in 20.9.
Longerenong also had the coldest spring temperature on record, with -3.5 degrees on September 19.
The dry spring meant farmers in the region started harvest week earlier than usual.
Victorian Farmers Federation vice-president and Murra Warra farmer David Jochinke described the season as cruel.
"We are half way through harvest and its' exactly how we thought it would be, and that's poor," he said.
"It was the season that could've been and we needed the weather we had at the end, at the start.
"Farmers who were lucky to get a thunderstorm should capitalise on it, but his neighbour down the road would have missed out, through no fault of his own."
Longerenong weather statistician Brett Allender said spring was ordinary, with no more than seven millimetres falling on any individual day.
"Only 32mm was recorded for Longerenong in total, barley a quarter of the 114mm that would fall in an average spring," he said.
"Even the dreadful finish to 2006 produced a spring total of 40mm, which makes this year's total the lowest since the 1982 drought."
