Australia braces for hottest day ever

A photo taken on 10 December 2019 shows a firefighter conducting back-burning measures to secure residential areas from encroaching bushfires in the Central Coast, some 110 kilometers north of Sydney. (AFP)

First came the bush fires. Now comes the withering heat.

Or rather, first came the bush fires and rounds of withering heat, now come even more scorching temperatures. Such is the situation facing virtually all of Australia this week, in the wake of an unusually hot spring so far.

A scorching heat wave is progressing from west to east across the continent, breaking numerous all-time records as it does so. According to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), the record for the country’s hottest-ever day, when averaged across all maximum temperatures recorded across the country, could fall this week.

The current record stands at 105 degrees (40.3 Celsius), set on 7 January 2013, the BOM’s Adam Morgan reported.

Perth, a city of about 2 million on the continent’s west coast, had three straight days with a high temperature at or above 104 degrees (40 Celsius), breaking the previous monthly record for December of two days, which was last reached in 2007.

The heat wave is forecast to shift to South Australia during the next few days, before moving into New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. Temperatures are predicted to be as much as 36 degrees (20 Celsius) above average this year, with some areas potentially reaching or exceeding 122 degrees (50 Celsius), particularly sparsely populated inland areas.

A large expanse of Australia, from Western Australia to Victoria, is predicted to see high temperatures at or above 113 degrees (45 Celsius) on Wednesday, according to the BOM.

On Monday, Brisbane tied its record for the hottest December day, at 106.2 degrees (41.2 Celsius).

The heat may peak in Melbourne on Friday, with a high temperature above 104 degrees (40 Celsius). More than 100 bush fires are burning in New South Wales and Queensland, and the heat will probably make the situation worse for firefighters who have spent months trying to keep flames from destroying properties.

Penrith, located west of Sydney near the Blue Mountains, is forecast to see a high temperature of 115 degrees (46 Celsius) on Saturday.

Extreme heat is the biggest weather-related killer in Australia, according to the BOM. Heat waves like the ongoing event are also clearly connected to long-term, human-caused global warming. So, too, are bush fire outbreaks, as both these extremes are worsening with increasing global average surface temperatures.

Global warming is causing heat waves to be hotter, drier, more likely to occur and longer-lasting, and fires are becoming more likely to grow into large blazes and exhibit extreme behavior that makes them difficult to control.

A combination of climate change and natural variability, particularly an air circulation pattern across the Indian Ocean, has led to an unusually dry and mild stretch in Australia that sparked an early and fierce start to the fire season. The seasonal fire outlook for this upcoming summer is grim from Queensland south to Victoria, as bone-dry conditions combine with extreme heat to make for ideal fire conditions.

So far, the New South Wales Rural Fire Service has reported that an area about 1.5 times the state of Connecticut, or about 5.3 million acres in size, has burned in that state, with more summer fires yet to come. These fires are largely the result of an atypical drought for the area, increasing temperatures, and low humidity. Coupled with the danger of the fires is the resulting shroud of smog that is currently covering Sydney. (Washington Post)