South Australia Geography & Climate

South Australia is the driest state on the driest inhabited continent, and almost everyone lives in the small green corner in the southeast.

Adelaide sits on a coastal plain between the sea and the Mount Lofty Ranges, which catch enough rain to support the Adelaide Hills and the wine regions immediately beyond them.

North of that the Flinders Ranges rise out of the plain — among the oldest mountains on earth, eroded from what were once Himalayan heights, with Wilpena Pound a natural amphitheatre ringed by them.

Beyond lies desert: salt lakes including Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, which fills only in rare flood years, and the Nullarbor running west — a limestone plain so flat and treeless it carries the longest straight stretch of railway in the world.

The settled south has a Mediterranean climate: hot dry summers, mild wet winters, and a genuine growing season that is exactly why the wine regions are where they are.

Adelaide summers bring spells above 40°C, often several days running, broken by a cool change off the sea.

North of the ranges the climate is arid: very hot summers, cold clear winter nights, and rainfall too low and too unreliable to plan around. Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre fills only a few times a century.

Bushfire risk is serious in the Adelaide Hills and on Kangaroo Island from December to March.