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.
Another Adelaidean here. Good to see a few others here on WUWT. Heat waves like this are normal in our summer Dec- Feb, and occasionally we get a heat wave in March too. Last year was unusual in that we had a heat wave in November, but then December was very unremarkable and seemed coolish. If you live here then a few days of 41C is not unusual. Its when it gets up to 46 that it gets hard to deal with. Personally I like it cool to sleep well and an AC in the bedroom is needed for me, unlike others like Dearieme who think its cool enough to sleep with just a ceiling fan. Been there and done that and it isn’t!
Check the record, the highest mean temps for Adelaide in Jan and Feb are all in the earlier records.
They are higher by about 2C for both months.
These temps are normal for Adelaide, it’s like saying gee we had 2 inches of rain overnight in Tully in Queensland, it just doesn’t make sense.
It’s the millions of degrees Earth’s core seeping through Australia’s crust…
“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.”
By having another beer.
I know, I know, I get it, I get it !!!!
You see, the NH is cold and the SH is warm and those are the facts see, and that is how physics work see, but we have it all wrong when we imagine that North is UP, see?
The entire universe has flipped “upside” down, heat moves up and cold sinks, easy, we just got the fundamentals wrong. Turn the whole universe the right way up and the physics fall into place ! And in 6 months time, the universe will flip again making the NH warm and the SH cold, easy.
Pingo (11:51:41) :
“This is not inconsistent with global cooling.”
Very, very funny!
I lived in Adelaide for 15 years from 1978 to 1993 before moving to south east Queensland. Adelaide’s climate is very harsh and over 40 deg C is not unusual in summer. I remember going soaring on one 44deg day. Sailplane pilots wait for those days in summer as the convection gets very deep and even though the air is dry the convection is deep enough to get cumulus at up to 16000 feet. Sailplane pilots love cumulus clouds as they mark the thermals.
Those days are also marked by quite strong and gusty northerly winds so any bushfires travel at great speed aided by the properties of eucalyptus trees aka natural napalm or fuel air explosives.
High temperatures caused by a High in the Tasman sea between Aust and NZ which then causes the air flow to come down onto Adelaide after crossing about 2000kms of hot dry desert to the north of Adelaide. A desert which has been further denuded by feral camels, in plague proportions
It happens every year to greater or lesser extents, and those of us who have lived here for awhile, see nothing unusual.
Is Co2 making it hotter? …dont know… and they dont either.
Temperature records are only marginally better than those in the USA and elsewhere. Normal standard applies.
It’s about the bushfires.
It’s about folk naturally worried by extreme events.
Our side-of-the-road bushfire signs used to show “Extreme” as the top setting, now we have “Catastrophic”.
It’s government by fear.
So at a time when we should be promoting Australia as a warm, sunny, safe place to visit for all you frozen ones we have these types of messages.
So, “Don’t mention the sharks. Come on in the water’s great”.
Cheers Jack
(and my ceiling fan works a treat – quiet, little energy usage, fresh air)
Deaths from cold weather:
This is just a random google sample:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8425805.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3342939.stm
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=574
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/30/severe-weather-road-deaths
http://www.lgcplus.com/news/more-cold-weather-deaths-warning/1984218.article
….and so it goes, but you get the picture.
Yes, my brother who lives in Melbourne area tells me it’s done nothing but rain until recently when he was on holiday in Noosa, Queensland. (Whereas Melbourne specialised in going through all four seasons in one day).
Michael (12:42:21) :
“…. 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.
I am assuming this is some “insider” info but I am not surprised to see it since I have been expecting something like this to happen soon. If one of the food safety bills makes it through Congress it will definitely happen. The average age of the US farm is in their fifties and they are not about to put up with lots of government regulations and the risk of high fines (up to $1,000,000/day/incident) No one is going to bother to buy the land to farm it either.
I strongly suggest planting a garden this coming spring!”
No Chance of US Bumper Harvest: This lists all the crop failures this fall http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/09/no-chance-of-bumper-us-harvest.html
2010 Food Crisis for Dummies: “If you read any economic, financial, or political analysis for 2010 that doesn’t mention the food shortage looming next year, throw it in the trash, as it is worthless. There is overwhelming, undeniable evidence that the world will run out of food next year….” http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/12/2010-food-crisis-for-dummies.html
May 2008 “While the previous surpluses were costly and sharply criticized, much of the food found its way to the poor, here and abroad. Today, says USDA Undersecretary Mark Keenum, “Our cupboard is bare.” U.S. government food surpluses have evaporated..” http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2008-05-01-usda-food-supply_N.htm
From January 2008 year (I do not have access to look at this year) ‘Panic Buying’ in the Grain Markets: “Officials last month forecast U.S. wheat stocks will shrink to their lowest level in 60 years. The U.S. is the world’s largest exporter of wheat, and importing countries are bidding heavily for its crops as other exporters cut supplies. The USDA has cautioned in six months wheat exporters in the US have already sold more than 90 percent of what the agency expected to be exported for the entire year.” http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/dancy/2008/0104.html
A PEW report and my own experience (loss of over two foot of topsoil on my farm) back up this report:
“The world’s soils continue to be degraded at an unprecedented rate that will only exacerbate the current food crisis, scientists are warning.
The current surge in food prices has been blamed on factors such as the diversion of food crops into biofuels production, coupled with poor harvests caused by droughts, floods and pests. But the situation was a long time in coming, experts say, with unexpectedly poor harvests stressing an already weakened food production system.
According to a report by the World Resources Institute, world agricultural production has fallen by one-sixth, and one-fifth of the world’s cropland is now considered degraded….” http://www.naturalnews.com/024280.html
April 2008: “This global mobilisation [of farmers organisations] is taking place as hunger is back on the public agenda. Food prices have been rising dramatically over the past year and hunger riots are happening in various parts of the world. For La Via Campesina, the current food crisis is largely due to speculation and trade liberalisation in the agriculture sector. Large food traders are now speculating on expected future shortages and rising prices artificially, creating hunger and increasing poverty. On the other hand, the steady dismantling of state mechanisms (such as buffer stocks and import controls) over the past decades has left countries extremely vulnerable to food price volatility.” http://corporatewatch.wordpress.com/category/food-agriculture/
Manufacturing Food Crisis: http://agrariancrisis.wordpress.com/2008/09/12/manufacturing-food-crisis/
The suicide economy of corporate globalisation: http://agrariancrisis.wordpress.com/2007/03/22/the-suicide-economy-of-corporate-globalisation-2/
Food Security, Farming, CAFTA and the WTO http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/cafta/Agriculture.html
Gail Combs (14:18:06) :
Thanks for posting that.
Market skeptics has many realistic articles on the agriculture subject.
Do you remember Storm X-change? Anybody know what happened to them? They used to provide real agriculture news/weather, its been hard to find detailed agri-news.
Ahhh….looks nice. I love heatwaves.
Totally missing from this (boring) story is the massive amount of rain and floods in that region just before Christmas. Now that was newsworthy!
Tropical cyclone Laurence crossed the Coast of North West Australia and traveled all the way to the South East of the country dumping huge amounts of water on the way.
Many places got more than their annual rainfall in a couple of days.
Cyclones do this all the time and are an important source of water to the interior. If we can get some healthy global warming going it will happen more often and Central Australia will become quite a lot wetter
Gail Combs (14:18:06) : Wrote
“Michael (12:42:21) :
“…. 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.
I am assuming this is some “insider” info but I am not surprised to see it since I have been expecting something like this to happen soon.”
Thank you Gail for your excellent analysis of the situation. You have really done your homework.
Inside information? Not really, It’ just something I’ve been keeping my eye on. I don’t always give a complete analysis of the many subjects I know and post about, because I just don’t have the time with everything on my plate. I count on people like you who already have this kind of information at hand. And besides, when someone else confirms something I have to say, some things that may sound a bit nutty, others are more inclined to sit up and take notice because of good people like you who step up and add validity to my simple statement.
Deepest Thanks Gail and Others.
Hmm…. It’s January, It’s Australia, and it’s … hot?? Who would have thought? I just hope nobody tells Peter Garrett. Poor bloke’s got enough on his plate.
BTW, it’s quite warm here in Victoria as well.
OK, who stole our summer ??
I’m on the Great Barrier Reef and temps should be between 30 / 35 deg C. so far this summer we have a couple of days over 30. At the moment, 9:30 AM, it is only 24.7C, rain, and windy !
I’ll have to take the boat for a run, warm the planet, 16 cylinders at a time.
For what it’s worth, in contrast to Adelaide’s heatwave there were unseasonal falls of snow in the mountains in the South Island of NZ overnight at the height of our summer. Just weather. What would we talk about without it?
Meanwhile back at the ranch … the politics of water still goes on re this article in The Australian by Matthew Franklin, chief political correspondent From: The Australian January 09, 2010 12:00AM
“Wong slaps down critics of $23bn Darling River water purchase
FEDERAL Water Minister Penny Wong has deflected opposition criticism of the government’s $23 billion purchase of Toorale Station in NSW, revealing the move has returned 11 gigalitres of water to the Darling River.
…
The row follows calls in yesterday’s The Australian for a review of water-sharing arrangements between states after a call by South Australian for NSW to release water from the Menindee Lakes storage to flow downstream.
Current arrangements mean NSW does not have to release water until the storage exceeds 640GL, far more than is expected to accumulate from recent rains.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/wong-slaps-down-critics-of-23bn-water-purchase/story-e6frg6nf-1225817491470
Not sure about the $23bn figure, whilst Toorale Station is big (we’re talking the size of small – now frozen – European countries) I don’t recall that much money being spent, maybe $23 Mil. Mind you the Rudd government did give away $42 Bil for our economic stimulus … which we didn’t need because they then put up interest rates, 3 times.
Jack
Wow, the WUWT effect is still very strong and can revive old sunspots… you put up a picture of the sun and voila… the old decaying 1035 comes back to life. IT’S ALIVE, ALIVE! And of course, NOAA gives it a new number to forge the statistics.
Sounds like summer in the interior of the US West Coast….
Christopher Hanley 12:06:54
As I suspect you infer from the BOM graphs, there is nothing unusual about current maximum temps in Adelaide. In my infancy in 1939, four of five days between January 9 and 13 had maxima equalling or exceeding 46 degrees C, a record that stands unbroken. I have lived in Adelaide most of my life. Very warm this morning (10:29 CSST), comfortable with an electric fan circulating air in the room. Unlike many today, my wife and do not fret. Nor will we in June-July when maximum temps may fall to 10 degrees C (mild compared with current NH conditions). We have lived long enough to be highly sceptical about AGW.
I found this article amusing. The irony of weather was most obvious this morning as I sat here in Adelaide and called my Mother back in Colorado to visit. The temperature had gotten to minus 25F back home. Water pipes were frozen and the garage door was stuck by ice to the floor. At the same time I’m sitting here in Adelaide figuring how not to get sun stroke. But as I sit here balancing both extremes, I know I’m luckier to be in Adelaide.
I could go to the beach today. But the waters here off Adelaide are too cold to make it really enjoyable. You find your testicles somewhere near your jaw line when you finally decide to make the plunge.
So, North Dakota’s 38 deg C summers are climate, but thier -38 deg C winters are weather. Austrailian summers can be brutal, and from what I know about Aussies 40 deg summers are normal to them. I suppose the media must balance things out.