With the summer season officially ending on March 1, the city failed to break the 40-degree barrier for the first time in more than a decade, though central and western regions of the state are still tinder dry and face an ongoing fire threat.

Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Phil King said it was unusual to see the CBD escape a 40-degree roasting this year, considering how the summer actually ended with slightly higher than average temperatures.

"It's quite incredible that we didn't get one," he said.

"We just seemed to escape it with either an early change or the winds were a little bit weak and we got a sea breeze sheltering us from that effect."

For instance, Avalon reached 42.1 degrees on January 2, but the CBD fell just short with a maximum of 38.8 degrees – the hottest day of the year. These blistering temperatures had been pushed by hot northerly winds all the way from inland regions, where Mildura was being baked under four days over 40 degrees.

It's the first time the city failed to reach 40 in a decade with the last 40-degree day occurring in early February last year.

But the weather bureau's seasonal figures, which will be finalised in the coming days, also show how night and daytime temperature averages were around half-a-degree above normal this summer, with rainfall totals close to average.

The summer started off dry and hot until the humidity increased and several storms drenched the state's east in mid-February. A total of 149mm of rain fell in a day on McKillop Bridge in the Snowy River National Park while Melbourne received a 66mm soaking at Ferny Creek.

But Victoria's Emergency Management Commissioner Craig Lapsley warned how weather conditions could still deteriorate in March and increase the bushfire risk, despite these earlier mild conditions.

He pointed out how, two years ago, a bushfire levelled homes at Dereel, south of Ballarat, at the end of March.

"Although we've come out of summer, the fire season, particularly in the western side of the state, is still a reality. That's due to the fact that it's still extremely dry and all we need then is a hot, windy day," he said.

There were more than 2300 grass and bushfires in December and January alone, though only nine of those fires caused significant problems for firefighters, he said.

In December, the Creightons Creek bushfire, near Euroa in the state's north-east, destroyed a handful of homes and burned nearly 7000 hectares.

A few weeks later, in early January, extreme fire conditions saw a grassfire raze homes, kill thousands of livestock, and threaten the township of Moyston, near Ararat.

That same day, extreme conditions saw a fast-moving fire in Hastings on the Mornington Peninsula pushed into the backs of several houses.

Mr Lapsley praised fire crews for stopping so many fires in the first attack, particularly the Moyston fire, where new air tankers were instrumental in helping firefighters get on top of the blaze.

"Without a doubt, they saved the township," Mr Lapsley said. "The intensity of that fire was so significant, I don't think they would have pulled it up without those large air tankers."

Total fire bans were in place on Saturday in the Mallee and Wimmera districts, which were facing a severe fire danger rating.

Temperatures were forecast in Melbourne to fall to a high of 18 degrees by Thursday while central and north-western parts of the state would remain in the high 20s or low 30s.

Twitter: @lillebuen