The New South Wales government has declared 100 percent of the state is now in drought.

"There isn't a person in the state that isn't hoping to see some rain for our farmers and regional communities," said NSW Minister for Primary Industries Niall Blair.

Up until now, some parts of the North Coast were thought to not be in drought, or be recovering; but new figures from the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) show every part of the state is parched.  And almost a quarter of NSW is classified as being in "intense drought".

"We've seen the area of drought just expand slightly, we've seen the area of intense drought expand and slightly change its focus," DPI agricultural climatologist Anthony Clark said.

In the last month, forecasters have logged fewer than ten millimeters of rain in the western, northwest, and central areas of NSW.  BOM meteorologist Jane Golding said every part of NSW normally received rain throughout June, July, and August.

"This year we haven't really seen either of those and last year as well we didn't really see too much of the either of those rain bearing systems making their way into NSW," she said.  "It is unusually dry and also unusually warm which exacerbates the problems, so the warm temperatures dry out the soils even more."

More than half of Queensland is also in drought, while parts of Victoria and South Australia are also experiencing dry conditions.