THE temperatures has hit 40.8C in Adelaide today – and it will be even hotter than expected on the weekend with the forecast now for 43C on Sunday and Monday.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s 4pm forecast is for 41C on Saturday and 43C on Sunday and Monday, posing an extremely high risk of bushfires.
The temperature is not expected to drop below the mid 20s at night and there will be no real relief from the heat in Adelaide until Tuesday mid-morning, when a cool change is forecast to bring an expected top of 26C.
More than 1500 elderly and vulnerable people have received daily phone calls today as part of the Red Cross Telecross REDI program to determine how they are coping with the heat.
Red Cross SA executive director Kerry Symons said the system in which people pre-register to be called on hot days, will run until the heatwave is over.
“We saw first-hand how important the service was last November, with almost 300 people needing help during the period and six people hospitalised as a result of the calls,” she said.
“We hope to be able to prevent serious heat-related incidents in the coming days.”
The State Government has also issued a warning to all South Australians to look after themselves and the vulnerable during the current heatwave.
Acting Health Minister Jane Lomax-Smith urged those going to the Schutzenfest to remember that alcohol dehydrates you and said everyone should remember to stay rehydrated.
Families and Communities Minister Jennifer Rankine urged people to check on elderly family members and neighbours.
Fire bans across state
A total fire ban has been declared in eight of the state’s fire districts and the West Coast has been rated as an extreme danger zone.
The Mount Lofty Ranges, the Mid North, the Yorke Peninsula, the Lower South East, the Flinders, the Eastern and Lower Eyre Peninsula have all been rated as severe danger zones.
Read the rest of the story here.
Ok. Why is this article here?
It’s to answer the question of how much counter-warming is going on in the S. Hemisphere. Australia is it, with a typical summer heat wave on the South Australian Coast. They didn’t say ‘record breaking’.
From Christopher Hanley (12:06:54) :
Then it looks about par for January highest temps.
I doubt it. Interesting also that although New Zealand have yet to publish their 2009 Summary, if you check their seasonal summaries for the year, I would say that 2009 will not reflect any warming, perhaps even colder than recent years:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/publications/all/cs
So something different went on in Australia in 2009. There were definitely more heatwaves than normal even during last winter. But in the words on the famous poem written by Dorothea Mackellar in 1904:
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains.
We are used to it and as most Australians live on the coastal plain there is always a cool change a few days away. Unless some nutter arsonists (or maybe something else) starts some fires, it should pass without too much ado.
As expected, out come the nutters:
”
Labor seizes on temperature figures as evidence of global warming
Environment Minister Peter Garrett said today the finding that Australia’s annual mean temperature for 2009 was 0.9C above the 1961-90 average exposed Tony Abbott’s false climate change claim that global warming has stopped.
“This false and misleading claim is today shown to be completely at odds with the rigorous scientific findings of the independent experts at the Bureau of Meteorology,” Mr Garrett said.
”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/labor-seizes-on-temperature-figures-as-evidence-of-global-warming/story-e6frg6xf-1225816209762
Some of that million-degree heat from the Earth’s interior must be leaking out through Australia…
I’ve been hearing met-office officials stating that southern Europe is experiencing unprecedented hot December/January temperatures this winter.
Extreme heat in central Adelaide has not become more frequent since mid-twentieth century:
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=023000&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=01
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=023090&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=01
Born and bred Adelaidian here. Yes, it gets hot and dry in summer. That is normal. The temperatures get to 40 for quite a few days during most summers. 43 is unusual though. I haven’t looked it up, though I expect pretty easy to find, but I think hitting 43 would be very rare.
Australia at 45C, when was that? Well I know this song that mentions it, came out in 1987.
Beds Are Burning – Midnight Oil
OK, I couldn’t help myself. All right then.
Men at work: Land down under!!!! (One of their best songs!!)
Interesting. El Nino conditions are still in place as well – although their map shows December as cold in most of US. So, I guess things like this is why we were still a little above on overall global temps in December.
Christopher Hanley
Thanks for the links. Record appears to be 46C (115F) or 3C (5.4F) hotter than forecast on Sunday/Monday.
There will likely be far fewer dying from higher temperatures in Australia than from colder temperatures in Europe/US. see NIPCC’s Human health effects
rbateman- Exactly right…
Looking at the forecast highs for the region…the rest of Australia is about normal…only South Australia (the bush) is getting warmer weather…
Current conditions as of 6:00AM (local time)in Port Adelaide (Current time 7:02AM) Temp is 68F – High for today 99F (Low 69F) – Tomorrow High 96F (Low 76F) – Sun High 98F (low 72F) gets cooler after that…
So somewhat above the Average High for Jan of 82F but nothing unheard of by US standards…Just ask Arizona!
Bottomline: The rest of the world is either normal or well BELOW Average!!! Europe/Asia/NA/SA/Africa…etc
Globally speaking…this is a cooling trend.
G
Hot in the summer? Who ever could have imagined.
I think the AGW crowd will change it’s tune somewhere around June, July, and August this year. That’s when they will notice food shortage in the US. The Department of Agriculture says we have enough supply to last us till August this year. That’s two months short. And you know what the kicker is? We have no supplies in reserve. But that’s not the best part. The best part is, food prices will probably double and triple by then. That’s when you will see the AGW crowd change it’s tune. Don’t ask me where I got this.
Aha! I’ve got it! It’s that pipeline of heating we’re supposed to have waiting and means we need to spend gazillions now to combat. Only the pesky Australians have gone and diverted it from the northern hemisphere.
Australia is hot, needs water.
The Northern Hemisphere is cold, snowy, needs road salt.
Why aren’t they building desalinization plants in Australia? There are markets for both of the main products. There are profits to be had, get capitalism moving on it!
And if the greenies complain, explain how you are making sea salt for their healthy-living lower-sodium veggie cooking. Surely you can sell them on that, after all they are still buying global warming.
AdderW, DonK31….
Here’s a link to Adelaide Climatology graph
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/images/climate/wz_clim_annual_site_23090.png
I can tell you that it is one one of the hottest cities in Aus in the summer, 43C is hot but not unheard of by any stretch.
Tim, Scarsdale, Vic, Aust.
Wonder what the conditions were in Adelaide during the Dalton Minimum.
Specifically the year without a summer.
Ho hum….Typical Adelaide summer heat-wave here High thirties to low forties as normal…Nothing unusual about that…Occurs every Summer a 3 or 4 or 5 or or 7 or 8 times at least!
I must have read wrong… nowhere in the article are the words “climate change” or “climate warming”… surely something is wrong.
If the northern hemisphere is so cold, the heat must get out somewhere. It seems it wans to get out through the ozone hole at the south pole… if you add that heat to that of the southern summer… yeah, it must be hot there.
Michael (12:42:21) :
I think the AGW crowd will change it’s tune somewhere around June, July, and August this year. That’s when they will notice food shortage in the US. […] Don’t ask me where I got this.
Okay then, I won’t ask. I will post this link to a long informative article that, while alarmist in tone and predicting The Even Greater World Depression, looks well researched with a well laid-out case for concern. It comes from an investment site BTW.
Nothing new! We can look at history and see that this has all happened before. Once again, I refer to the NY Times. This time it was 1896; the headlines read: “HOTTEST OF HOT WAVES ON RECORD. ….Adelaide, Australia, marked 127 (degrees F) in the shade.” That’s 52.8 C!
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C07E1DA1539E632A2575BC1A96E9C94679ED7CF
Another article in 1898 leads off with “AUSTRALIA BURNS IN THE SUN,” where average daytime temperatures were 124F (51C). If we had CNN back then, Anderson Cooper would have started his “Planet In Peril” show and all the greenies would have predicted that the world would be at war by 1914 because of Global Warming.
Here in the U.S. we’re about to go through a nationwide phenomenon known as the January thaw, milder air throughout the whole country pretty much. What’s interesting is this.
http://www.farmersalmanac.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1121
This guy (dunno if he works for the almanac), says the thaw should last 2 weeks before the Eastern 2/3rds of the U.S. sees a return to harsh Winter weather and cold. He also says he has wild forecasts as we go into Summer too.
why can’t they just prop up some of their fancy ass bird beaters (windmills) and point them this direction to warm things up in the NH?