Temperatures across South Australia soared past 40C before 10am on Monday as widespread heat hit Adelaide and Melbourne and had parts of New South Wales bracing to endure their hottest December day on record.
Temperatures above 45C were recorded in towns across the country.
Walpeup, in Victoria’s northwest, reached 47.1C at 2:25pm , but did not exceed the town’s hottest recorded temperature on record of 48.1 on 7 February 2009.
Birdsville in Queensland, Smithville in western NSW, Renmark in northeast SA, and Jervois in the Northern Territory all recorded maximum temperatures above 45C.
Jonathan How, a senior meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology, said Adelaide had already reached its forecast maximum of 38C by 10am, after only dropping to 29.8 degrees overnight.
“It’s already hitting 40 degrees for some of the suburbs to the north,” he said.
Handball, in the Murraylands region to the east of Adelaide, reached 41.1C at 9.43am. Edinburgh, in the outer north of Adelaide, hit 41C at 9.55am.
In Melbourne the central business district was 30 degrees by 9am, with temperatures rising to 38.1C by 2:49. If the city reached 41C as forecast, it could be the hottest December temperatures since the black summer bushfires of 2019.
Much of Australia’s south-east, particularly inland areas, were already sweltering by mid-morning. In the north, Mildura had clocked 33C at 9am and passed 40C by mid-morning.
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Ivanhoe and Wilcannia, in western NSW, were expected to be the hottest places in Australia and could experience their hottest December day on record. Both towns had already hit 37C by 9am, had exceeded 45C around 3pm, and were expected to reach 47C.
Wilcannia’s previous December record was 46.4C in 2005 and Ivanhoe’s 46.2C in 2019. “We’ll be keeping an eye on the mercury through there today,” How said.
“There is extreme fire danger all the way from the Mount Lofty Ranges in Adelaide through the south-east of SA, all western Victorian districts, and then central Victoria, that includes Melbourne today,” he said.
Although a cool change would bring relief from the heat, How said, it wasn’t expected to reach Adelaide until late afternoon or early evening and was expected to reach Melbourne about 7pm.
Sydney is forecast to reach 32C on Tuesday, with western Sydney tipped to record 42C.
Large parts of central Australia were experiencing extreme heatwave conditions, which were likely to stick around for the next six to seven days.
On Monday, across many locations, maximum temperatures could be 8C to 16C above average for this time of year, How said.
Australia’s land surface has warmed by 1.5C since 1910, according to the BoM, with the climate crisis making heatwaves longer and more intense and increasing the number of extremely hot days.
