It was drier in parts of NSW, Queensland, central South Australia, Tasmania and much of Western Australia in December last year than at the height of the Millennium drought.
That's according to scientists from the Australian National University, who developed software to analyse data from water-tracking satellites.
Dr Paul Tregoning headed the team which processed data captured by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission.
"Our preliminary results show already the drought last year appeared to be worse across a large area of Australia than late 2009," said Dr Tregoning from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences," Mr Tregoning said.
Read the full article in the Canberra Times by Mike Foley.