Melbourne University researchers Linden Ashcroft, Joelle Gergis and David Karoly used  historical records, from First Fleet logbooks, farm records, newspapers and government gazettes to paint a picture of the weather faced by settlers from 1788 to 1859.

The information, recorded before the start of official record-keeping in 1910, reveals that although the colony had a wet start in its first two years, the summers of 1790 and 1791 were hot and dry. Flying foxes and small birds reportedly fell from the trees and crops failed.

NSW endured a longer drought between 1837 and 1843, but the settlers were learning this was a country of extremes. Further south in Tasmania, wet conditions dominated for two years to 1838.

Documenting the temperature, rainfall and atmospheric pressure experienced by the young colony was a job taken seriously by scientists and farmers. Extreme weather was also noted in great detail in newspapers.

The first snow recorded in Melbourne after European settlement came in August 1849, with the melting snow making the streets "almost impassable from their flooded state", according to a report in The Argus.

Sydney's first snow after the arrival of the First Fleet was recorded in The Sydney Herald 13 years earlier, in June 1836. Arriving early in the morning it "covered the streets nearly an inch in depth" and resulted in "very limited" supplies at the markets the next day.

The work, which was awarded a Eureka Prize this year for interdisciplinary research, adds more than 70 years to our understanding of natural climate patterns in Australia's most populated region.

"It enhances our understanding of natural climate variability in Australia," said climatologist Joelle Gergis. "It allows us to have more of an understanding of the behaviour of the Australian climate in that pre-industrial period where we don't have interference from greenhouse gases."

The findings, which used data from 39 historical sources, have been outlined in the Geoscience Data Journal.

"Generally, as scientists, we don't go looking through the archives and libraries," Dr Gergis said. . "But for this we actually teamed up with historians."

Reviewing the historical data has allowed the researchers to pinpoint prolonged dry or wet periods in south-east Australia as well as identify anomalously cold periods between 1835-36 and 1848-49.

Dr Gergis said such information allowed present changes to climate trends to be viewed in a broader historical context.