South Australia's prolonged dry spell has set unwanted records as Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) data highlights the ongoing disparity between the parched conditions in South Australia and the near record rain for far North Queensland.

Tanunda, in the normal verdant Barossa Valley has received just 266mm for the year to the end of April, a staggering 273mm below its long term mean.

It is the lowest rainfall recorded for the period in the 123 years of data collection at the local weather station.

Other sites in key South Australian agricultural regions, such as Meningie, on the Coorong, 228mm and Farrell Flat, Mid North, 264mm, also recorded their driest or second driest year in over 100 years of weather gathering.

There is a similarly sobering outlook in the key South Australian catchments in the Adelaide Hills with Belair, 426mm and Mt Torrens, 406mm both recording their driest year since records began, with Hope Valley, 399mm, recording its second driest in 121 years.

The year to date rainfall is even more meagre, with many centres not even cracking double figures, with the year a third through.

Up until April 30, Swan Reach, in the Murraylands has had just 1.2mm and Hamley Bridge in the Mid North 2.8mm.

Western Victoria and south-west NSW are also enduring horror dry spells with Wentworth, NSW, recording just 1.6mm and Murrayville, in Victoria's Mallee only 9.2mm.

Staggeringly, six out of the ten top rainfalls for the year to date in SA are in arid northern parts of the state, where rain associated with the flooding in south-west Queensland earlier in autumn bolstered totals, although still generally below the mean.

This is in stark comparison to other parts of the country, where far North Queensland centres such as Paluma and Cardwell have received over 4.5 metres of rain so far for the year.

Paluma's national leading tally of 4910mm dwarves the mean for the year to the end of April of 1789mm, while Cardwell, 4797, is also near triple its mean of 1772mm.

In NSW, Yarras, in the hills west of Port Macquarie, has had over 2100mm so far this year, in the wettest 4pc of years on record while Tweed Heads is in the wettest 5pc, with 1542mm.

Through the Northern Territory Gunn Point and Gove both have 1454mm, while Truscott, on the remote Anjo Peninsula in the Kimberley is the only Western Australian mainland centre to crack a metre of rain for the year so far with 1301mm.

While the wet season is ending in the north, there is no immediate end in sight to the southern dry.

Weather models are not predicting any substantial rain in the medium term outlook, with the earliest fronts with any promise of more than light showers not due until at least late May.