Australian Heat Wave Not As Bad As 2013 In Temps, But Concentrated On Most Populated Areas

[hatrack]

A summer heatwave scorched the most populated parts of Australia over the weekend, with temperatures topping 107 degrees Fahrenheit in Sydney and 96 degrees in Melbourne, with readings up to 117 degrees farther inland. As wildfires raged and several weather stations reported all-time and monthly record highs, climate scientists warned that the this summer's extreme heat, super-charged by climate change, is becoming Australia's new normal.

Nearly every week has brought extreme heat this summer, but the latest surge was exceptional by encompassing nearly all of New South Wales, home to the capital Sydney and 7.5 million people. The average maximum temperature hit 111.2 degrees Fahrenheit Saturday across about 300,000 square miles, similar to an area the size of the southeastern U.S. Temperatures were even hotter during the Great Heat Wave of 2013, but those extreme readings were concentrated in the less-populated, central area of the country.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology reported that a weather station at White Cliffs, in the Southeast, recorded the warmest-ever nighttime low temperature in Australia, at 94.3 degrees Fahrenheit. Overnight temperatures are especially important in terms of human health impacts, because if nights don't cool down, people don't have a chance to recover from the extreme daytime temperatures.

Some spots in Queensland, in the Northeast, broke the 40 degree Celsius mark (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time ever—another sign that heatwaves are broaching new frontiers, according to Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick of Australia's Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales.

EDIT

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13022017/australia-heatwave-climate-change-sydney-melbourne

[Petrushka]

1. A poet friend of mine posted a video on Facebook showing hundreds of flying foxes killed by the heat

Here's a link where the video can be found:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4218662/Hundreds-flying-foxes-die-upside-heatwave.html

[hatrack]

2. Article also notes that fire conditions are worse than Black Sunday, though # of fires not as bad .

. . . yet.