The outlook for the season was below average in coastal parts of south-eastern Australia due to high rainfall associated with the continued La Niña climatic pattern.
[1] In early March 2023, lightning strikes ignited the Alpha Road Tambaroora blaze in the Central West region of the state, near Hill End.
[2][3] On March 16, a vehicle driving through long grass sparked the Curraweela Bushfire north of Crookwell in the Southern Tablelands.
Conservationists called it an environmental tragedy that was fuelled by climate change and the overgrowth of the invasive buffel grass weed.
[8] In February 2023, a series of bushfires sparked by lightning burnt across a large section of southern Western Australia.