Temperatures across Australia will soar as much as 15 degrees Celsius above average during the coming days, threatening October records across multiple states and territories.<\/p>\n
The unusually intense mid-spring heat sent Adelaide and Melbourne suburbs above 30degC on Thursday.<\/p>\n
It should lift Western Sydney’s maximums to 34C on Friday and 37C on Monday.<\/p>\n
Canberra is forecast to reach 33C on Monday, challenging the capital’s October record of 32.7C from 1946.<\/p>\n
The nation’s interior faces several days of oppressive maximums in the mid-40s.<\/p>\n
Unseasonable temperatures have lasted for weeks along the eastern seaboard – with Sydney, and possibly Brisbane, on track to observe their warmest October on record.<\/p>\n
A hot air mass has been building over north-west Australia all month, culminating in highs up to 44C in the Pilbara – just 3degC off the all-time national record for October.<\/p>\n
An initial burst of hot winds arriving from northern WA has reached NSW after spreading through SA and Victoria on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Weather will undoubtedly be a chief talking point around Sydney on Friday as it approaches its warmest October day in two years.<\/p>\n
Thunderstorms are also possible in the afternoon, which could include a dangerous supercell storm with large hail and damaging winds, along with a late southerly buster.<\/p>\n
However, for most of Australia, even hotter temperatures are forecast.<\/p>\n
A second wave of northerly winds will engulf eastern WA on Saturday and then sweep across SA and Victoria on Sunday.<\/p>\n
For inland towns of SA, maximums are likely to reach the mid-40s, placing the state’s all-time October record of 45.4C under serious threat.<\/p>\n
By Monday, the hot, dry air mass will reach the east, sending maximums to near 40C across inland NSW while south-west Queensland soars up to 45C – also challenging the state’s current October record of 45.1C.<\/p>\n
This week’s hot spell is being accompanied by gusty winds and low humidity – a recipe for widespread elevated fire dangers.<\/p>\n
Winds are not expected to be strong enough for “extreme” fire dangers across southern Australia, however, a large portion of the country is forecast to experience a “high” danger.<\/p>\n
When the fire danger is rated as “extreme”, fires will spread quickly and become difficult to control.<\/p>\n
A “high” danger only indicates the potential for dangerous fires.<\/p>\n
However, the fire threat could be enhanced by dry lightning, a phenomenon where high-based thunderstorms provide the spark to ignite fires, but without rainfall to dampen their spread.<\/p>\n
Dry lightning is possible in western SA on Sunday, followed by eastern SA and western NSW on Monday.<\/p>\n
Spells of hot north-westerly winds across southern states are inevitably followed by a cool change.<\/p>\n
After Friday’s southerly buster on the NSW coast, the second burst of heat will also be tempered by a southerly – dropping temperatures by as much as 15C in 24 hours.<\/p>\n
The cool change will reach Adelaide on Sunday evening, Melbourne on Monday, and Sydney on Tuesday where again the southerly has the potential to reach buster criteria.<\/p>\n
The cooler air will then gradually filter north into the central interior and southern Queensland mid-week.<\/p>\n
For much of Australia’s east, the hot spell is a continuation of a trend that became established in September.<\/p>\n
It has been so warm this month, daytime temperatures from central Queensland to the NSW South Coast are reminiscent of summer, averaging as much as 5degC above average.<\/p>\n
Through the past 166 years, Sydney’s average October maximum at Observatory Hill is 22.2C, with a record mean of 26.2C from 1988.<\/p>\n
So far this month, temperatures are running at 27.2C – which is higher than the mid-summer average.<\/p>\n
With further hot days ahead, it will take mini-ice age for Sydney not to record its warmest October on record.<\/p>\n
Brisbane’s weather station has 138 years of data, and its warmest October mean of 28.8C from 2013 is also under threat with a running average of 28.9C so far this month.<\/p>\n
Source: ABC & RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Temperatures across Australia will soar as much as 15 degrees Celsius above average during the coming days, threatening October records across multiple states and territories. The unusually intense mid-spring heat sent Adelaide and Melbourne suburbs above 30degC on Thursday. It should lift Western Sydney’s maximums to 34C on Friday and 37C on Monday. Canberra is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15379,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15377\/revisions\/15379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}