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.
According to the UK met office this is the most prolonged cold spell since the winter of 81/82. In December 81 my flight to Adelaide took 5 days because of the snow in the UK – we left 3 days late from Manchester in a blizzard.
In January 82 Adelaide had the hottest temperatures for 40 years reaching a maximum of 44C – seems quite a similar situation to now, not sure what the fuss is about other than the local councils here believed the met office forecast of a mild wet winter and didn’t prepare properly.
No one thought it was unusual back then – we’d ony just got over the impending ice age from a few years earlier!
The BOM historical record shows these maximum temperatures for 10th Jan in these years
1939 45.9
1999 41.9
1905 41.3
1927 41
2009 40.8
2007 40.5
1889 40.2
1991
These are for the old site at West Terrace years 1839-1980 #23000, or later from Adelaide airport 1955-2007 #23034.
1991 40.2
Being an Ex South Aussie, now living in Vic, I remember hot summers in Adelaide, this is nothing new, and will always stay the same. the thing with South Australia is it’s location, surrounded by hardly any vegetation, you get the hot winds blowing in from the outback (inland Australia for the uninitiated) and it’s bloody hot! I like to watch the weather a lot, and when a High Pressure system gets to south east Australia, it tends to hang over there for a few days, which provides the winds that heats up South Australia, by the time the high pressure system starts to move eastwards, it moves a lot quicker and then Vic only gets one or two warm days then the winds will swing around and bring in the cooler air from down south. Last year in Victoria, we had severe bushfires after a few days in a row over 45C which killed 178 people. And this was all blamed on climate change, when in fact, no one was allowed to clear up any dead or dying vegeation around their properties because green folk took hold in political areas and deemed it wrong to do so. It was even said that last year was one of our worst summers, and quite frankly that is wrong, I remember last summer very well, and bar those few severe days that lead to the bushfires it was a pretty average summer for Vic. Before this summer came around, we were being warned that this was going to be one hell of an extreme summer in Vic, but so far its been average again, a couple of hot days here and there, but not a great deal over 30C, although they are saying we are going to get to 41 or 42 here on Monday, the next few days will again be 30, 20, 22. But just watch for our (somewhat of a hermit lately after being ignored at Copenhagen) Prime Minister come out of hiding to say this is proof of climate change/global warming, which ever sounds the most extreme at the time! He announced proudly in Parliament just a couple of months ago when there was some unseasonably warm weather, saying there is your proof. I think I’ve rambled on too long now that I may not have made sense lol 🙂
SMS (16:45:23) :
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.”
SMA, I’m just back from the beach and the water off West Beach was quite mild, certainly not cold. Testicles fortunately did not head too far north!
by the way, the max here in Adelaide was 41.3C, hot but certainly not unusual.
The BOM historical record shows these maximum temperatures above 40 deg C for 10th Jan in these years
1939 45.9
1999 41.9
1905 41.3
1927 41
2008 40.8
2007 40.5
1889 40.2
1991 40.2
These are for the old site at West Terrace years 1839-1980 #23000, or later from Adelaide airport 1955-2007 #23034.
If 10th January 2010 proves to be above 40 deg C, yes, it will be hot. As for breaking records, time will tell.
The following day, Jan 11th, has these historical maximums
1898 43.1
1982 42.9
1905 42.2
1951 40.5
2005 40.3
Temperatures can change rapidly. The day after the 10th January 2008 hot day of 40.8, the maximum temperature was 25.1. The next year, 2009, the maximums for 10th and 11th January were 25.8 and 26.1 deg C.
Over the historic record, there are about 300 days when Adelaide’s maximum daily temperature exceeded or equalled 40 deg C.
All of these figures are subject to such UHI and adjustments as might have been applied.
As I recall, the UK had a scorching hot summer in 1976 – right at the peak of the global cooling scare!
“rbateman (11:38:44) :
Is the entire Southern Hemisphere suffering from massive heat waves in the way that the entire Northern Hemisphere is suffering from massive cold blasts?”
If you believe MSM then yes, the SH is in heatwave conditions. We, finally, got some summer here in the inner west of Sydney. It got to 40c, it was hot but dry with it, ~40% humidity, which makes it bearable. Still, we’ll soon be back to fall temperatures, sub 30c by Tuesday and I’ll bet that’ll be our summer done and dusted this year.
I have good memories of being in places where the temperature nudged 40 deg C, I have no terms of reference for what I’ve been seeing on the IntelliWeather widget for North America and weather underground temps for Europe.
Surely you’re better off in budgie smugglers than trying to get about wearing a whole wardrobe.
This warmist story helps Anthony against accusations by warmisters that he only posts stories beneficial to his sceptical views. However, I think you should add “another just weather not climate story” as you do with many of your cold weather stories.
Since the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing record cold whilst the Southern Hemisphere is experience record heat, does this not indicate that the extremes may have something to do with a change in the tilt of the earth’s axis?
Bryan Hughes
2010/01/09 at 4:03am
“Since the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing record cold whilst the Southern Hemisphere is experience record heat, does this not indicate that the extremes may have something to do with a change in the tilt of the earth’s axis?”
Except the SH is not experiencing record heat, as Pielke’s plots demonstrate. The only significant warm anomaly atm is the arctic, where its putting a lot of moisture in the air, which is being dumped to the south as snow, increasing planetary albedo.
Another Adelaidian here. I concur with the others. This is quite normal. We’ve got a high pressure cell over southern Oz with light northerly winds bringing in hot air from across land.
Forecast for Sunday
Dry, very hot and sunny. Light to moderate southeast to northeast winds with a
light afternoon sea breeze. As the winds move to southerly the weather cools.
Of interest and it would be great to see a breakdown, is this report from our BOM. South Australia in 2009 Warmest year on record for South Australia I found this quite disturbing after reading recent articles on WUWT re Darwin temp records and an article by WM Briggs on Homogenization of temperature series. I’ve begun to wonder what is the value of some supposed mean temp for a region.
cheers
Michael
I thought you might be a grain trader. I have been keeping an eye on farming ever since I realized what the WTO Agreement on Agriculture was designed to do. And that is to move world food production into the hands of the international food cartel and create famines to increase prices. Waxman is sponsoring not only the Cap and Trade bill but the Food Safety bill too. The words traitor and murderer come to mind.
Even the Wall Street Journal has noticed the food problem Slow Harvest Prompts USDA to Raise Crop-Price Outlook http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125789919795042543.html
The USDA has college kids operating computers linked to satellites. A friend’s kid has done this. http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/agoutlook/apr1998/ao250f.pdf
The USDA does provide a harvest forecast service. http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/OCE081/ Since the USDA is run by the same international food cartel that gave the world the WTO AoA, I imagine the information is as reliable as that coming out of the MET and CRU…. Unless you are a grain trader. As usual our taxes at work for the benefit of the few and the demise of many. It allows the USDA to hide a comming famine so people can not prepare. (Food hoarding is illegal in the USA anyway)
The move towards famine is accelerating. In 2009 a new entity called the Global Food Initiative was formed by the four leaders of the world food cartel, Monsanto, ADM, DuPont aka Pioneer Seed, and John Deere. It was announced by the G-8 nations, lead by Barack Obama. “The Global Food Initiative calls for fewer, stricter standards, a “farm to fork” approach , the elimination of trade barriers…” This is just a regurgitation of the WTO AoA and HACCP that has served us e-coli with our dinner.
Just like with CAGW where the solution of the “global warming” crisis is in reality a transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the financiers and corporate head honchos, regulations and famine will be used to transfer land, seed, livestock and a guaranteed cash flow to the Ag Cartels. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=2202
The globalists are pushing for the “harmonization” of national laws to the dictates of the WTO (HACCP) “The use of a HACCP approach by food businesses should be recognized by governments as a fundamental tool for improving the safety of foodstuffs.” http://www.ourfood.com/foodsafety/FoodSafetyAndControlSystem14.pdf
HACCP is why the USA now has food poisoning issues. Instead of inspectors inspecting food they inspect paperwork. Under HACCP the plant writes its own food safety plan. “The new role of the [government] inspector was to make sure that plant personnel were carrying out their duties in a manner consistent with the HACCP plan. In many cases this amounted to making sure that all of the paper work was in the proper order.” http://www.mfu.org/node/276
The Global Food Initiative, is all about paperwork and fines for farmers. I get a chill when I see the words “Food Safety Leadership Council On-Farm Standards” and “The Food Safety Leadership Council is an industry group…” and find the “Guidelines established by the Food Business Forum” include:
“Standards applied to farm level activities are built around the establishment risk assessments and foundation programs such as standard operating procedures (SOPs), good management practices (GMPs), sanitation operation procedures (SSOPs), etc… These programs and procedures are required to be documented to allow for an accounting (audit) of how well the firm is performing relative to its established protocols. For example, the Global Food Initiative Guidelines established by the Food Business forum provide detail information on what should be included in a firm’s food safety management system.” http://naamic.tamu.edu/austin/paggi.pdf
This paperwork nightmare is to be applied to farmers across the world. A dairy farmer in the UK said it takes up 60% of his time. As you look at these numbers think of third world farmers.
There are 2,128,982 farms In the USA.
1,519,209 GROSS less than $25,000 a year
298,385 GROSS between $25,000 and $100,000
240,746 farms GROSS between $100,000 and $500,000
Only 70,642 farms GROSS over $500,00, these are the corporate farms
There is little or no money for farmers in the USA to deal with the burden of this paperwork, third world farmers don’t have a snowballs change in hades. Once our independent farmers are gone there is no way to easily undo the mess and we will be looking at reduced food output at higher cost in the face of a possible little Ice Age.
Happy Nightmares everyone.
ex rural sth aussie now in Vic, I remember in 200??( pick any summer really) putting my digital thermo outside under the grapevine in coolest area of my yard on a hot day, it went to 50C and zeroed out, and there were many such summer days.
hot in vic today, but cooler breezes in the arvo which adelaide etc doesnt seem to get that often.
Its been a cool summer, I cannot get any vines to grow, ie pumpkin watermelon etc all took weeks to even sprout and will not produce fruit by the time it cools down.
friend in NT just got 140mm rain and the Ghan train had to go back due to track out.
NSW had floods last week, and WA had fires.
its australia and we love it:-)
support Peter Spencers hunger strike about unpaid repossession of private land for Kyoto Fraud.
http://www.agmates.ning.com
hassle KRUDD he deserves it.
amicus curiae (05:37:32) :
support Peter Spencers hunger strike about unpaid repossession of private land for Kyoto Fraud.
http://www.agmates.ning.com
hassle KRUDD he deserves it.
Reply:
Yes and I love to read ag mates too even though I am in North Carolina USA.
It’s now 14 F (high temp today was 19 F) where I am with a foot of snow on the ground. To keep the house livable I have two wood stoves running and just reading about these temperatures makes me feel warmer.
Thanks, Anthony, for including the hot with the cold.
“Thanks, Anthony, for including the hot with the cold.”
How about the “wet with the dry”?
There is a 110 year record of Australian rainfall produced by the BOM 9 January 2010 in the document from which I take highlights below:
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/climate/change/20100105.shtml
Rainfall. The last decade shows as the second wettest.
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii14/sherro_2008/Rainfallto2010.jpg?t=1263080553
Here is the start of the BOM commentary on the observations, again with that seemingly omnipresent emphasis on tragedy and catastrophe:
“Based on preliminary data, the overall Australian mean rainfall total for 2009 was 453 mm, slightly less than the long-term average (1961-90) of 464 mm. Above-average rainfall in January and February, especially in the northern tropics, was followed by dry conditions from March onwards, with the March-November total being the 10th lowest on record for Australia. A dry year in the southeast and southwest of mainland Australia has prolonged the multi-year meteorological drought in those regions.
During July to October 2009, serious rainfall deficiencies were experienced over large areas of Queensland and isolated parts of NSW, consistent with the development of an El Niño event during this time. The unusually dry and warm winter was associated with a series of dust-storms across eastern New South Wales and southeast Queensland in September and early October.”
But it’s just weather.
Here in Melbourne it is also hot, BUT it is expected as others have said it is our SUMMER. Here is what really gets me…why is it that we had the fireplace going only a few days ago AND we were wearing jumpers etc when we should be wearing shorts and sunscreen???
We don’t have white snowy Christmas’s here in OZ, we have bl**dy white hot ones!!!
The heat is normal for our area and BTW the hottest I have personally encountered is slightly above 48C. Oh yeah and we did drink beer without becoming dried prunes.
A bit late to the party here, but work commitments got in the way.
Geoff Sherrington,
300 days exceeding 40C over the historic record (122 yrs), gives an average of 2.46 days per year. 2009 had 12 days exceeding 40C, well in excess of the long term average. There were also an additional 5 days between 39C and 39.9C.
While the maximum temperature is not unprecedented, the fact that Adelaide had 12 days in excess of 40C is quite out of the ordinary.
Should today’s (Sunday) forecast prove accurate, that will leave us one short of the long term annual average with 355 days to go.
Patrick Davis,
You seem to have forgotten the extreme temperatures and bushfires in NSW during December. Also we still have seven weeks of Summer to go and it generally does not peak until late January – February. Don’t wager anything you can’t afford to lose.
Vote Quimby,
I live in an extremely fire prone area, and the local council for many years had issued notices to landowners to clear undergrowth and dead vegetation. Despite vegetation protection overlays, you can still be given a permit to remove trees.
Also, removal of vegetation around your property was no guarantee of safety on Black Saturday. Such is the random nature of fire that where one property was destroyed the adjoining property could remain relatively unscathed. Even properties situated in large cleared areas were destroyed. The culprit was radiant heat traveling well in front of the flames igniting houses long before the fire front arrived. Several CFA Captains I have spoken to over recent months have all made the same point.
As for this summer, December was about 2C above its long term average maximum. Remember summer doesn’t peak here until late January- February.
Amicus curiae,
Unless you use a calibrated thermometer in a Stevenson Screen, your temperature readings are useless for comparative purposes. As I stated earlier, December was warmer than average, and fortunately with a reasonable amount of rain. In fact our garden has had near tropical growth, our fruit trees are heavy with ripening fruit, and the lawn needs cutting every week. This time last year everything was dead. Give Peter Cundall a call I’m sure he will get your garden going again.
ShaneOfMelbourne,
PLEASE!!! If you are to comment about the fires then leave it to those that were in them…my family and I. We lost not only property but quite a few friends as well, fortunately not directly from our family but many neighbors that also live in this the bush that we love but are not allowed to touch due mostly to the extremist greenies that control the local council.
It is quite distressing to see that the same profile of the green movement seems to appear in the global warming debate – if you could call it a debate.
You make my blood boil when I read comments about the removal of vegetation and more so comments such as ‘Even properties situated in large cleared areas were destroyed’.
As was presented by many at the Royal Commission – of which I was one – due to the heavily fuel laden bush – that we are NOT allowed to touch – these so called houses that were in the cleared areas were rained upon (and I mean rained upon) by ember attacks that had a front of more than a kilometer.
As for vegetation removal it is none existent in our part of the country and the great news for us is that the local greeny activists are now replanting between the trees that were burnt and are regrowing. With unbelievable logic such as this, the next bonfire will be even bigger because the bush maybe twice as thick. I just hope that we wont have to drive through the 20-40m flames to get to safety next time.
I wish to finish by detailing to the many readers of this forum a short story of what these extremists a really like.
At one of the meetings with the Royal Commission, we had a lady and her daughter appear and explain how they lost their husband/father in the fire as he was trying to save their property which was surrounded by thick bush. My heart as did others went out for their loss and sorrow, BUT when I stood up to put forward my story and described how I and others would like to have more control of our properties by allowing at least cleaning if not clearing…to my amazement I WAS HECKLED by that same lady and her daughter saying that I should move and leave the area we don’t want you here etc etc…UNBELIEVABLE???
Isn’t it interesting how the profiles match, it’s frightening!
The BOM does provide some very interesting data for everyone to search and analyse.
My favourite is the rain fall figures for the Muray Darling Basin which all the pollies and the greenoids say is in drought.
Plus the Crimate Scientists at the CSIRO say the SE corner of Australia will dry out as AGO takes hold.
Well how do they explain this then,namely:
1.There has been no change in the rainfall pattern over the MDB in 110 years
2.If anything the trend is upwards.
http://reg.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rain&area=mdb&season=0112&ave_yr=11
The absence of water in the MDB is not caused by an absence of rain but managerial and political incompetence…. and more broken promises by Rudd and Wong and Garrett..not being prepared to standup to their Labour mates in NSW and Victoria.
Lupine in Oz
So I take it you are all for freedom of speech as long as it agrees with your point of view.
I had family and friends who were involved in the Ash Wednesday fires. They also lost friends and property.
As for Black Saturday, I am merely stating the comments from several CFA Captains I have spoken to over recent months who were there. They all stated the same thing: clearing of vegetation around properties was no guarantee against the fire.
If you object to the way your local council operates, stand for council yourself, and get elected. As I said, council here issues orders to clear undergrowth and from what I have seen, ours is one of your “greeny”councils.
I live in Adelaide.
Yesterday afternoon we went down to the beach – fish-n-chips, a walk along the sand. It was quite pleasant.
Away from the beach, its not very nice.
But a run of days over 40 degrees is quite normal through January and February. We’ve had runs like this of 10 days in a row – back in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Its NORMAL.
In fact, this is a short run, only 4 days over 39. YAWN. Nothing to see. Move along.
ShaneOfMelbourne
Exactly right, ‘Freedom of Speech’ and ‘Freedom to debate’, not to be heckled and suppressed from doing so.
I suggest you get yourself educated about councils in some of the fire prone areas. For example http://sosnews.org/bushfires/
BTW the CFA captains I have spoken to and know well have stated the same BUT you forget to mention the problems with the National Parks which burnt so much from so far away. National Parks that are not to be touched by us and are there just growing into ever larger bonfires for our next trip to hell.
On closing I hope you’re happy with the new rule that allows for additional clearing of trees around our properties. I wonder if you consider the new boundary of 10 metres (which was 9 metres) adequate for rural areas that have trees of 20 metres plus at that distance from houses?
Enough said by me, we are winning, our council CEO will no longer be with us this year. Contract has been canceled.
Ashleigh (20:15:25) :
I live in Adelaide.
Yesterday afternoon we went down to the beach – fish-n-chips, a walk along the sand. It was quite pleasant.
Away from the beach, its not very nice.
But a run of days over 40 degrees is quite normal through January and February. We’ve had runs like this of 10 days in a row – back in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Its NORMAL.
In fact, this is a short run, only 4 days over 39. YAWN. Nothing to see. Move along.
Hi Ashleigh,
I never knew that.
You must have had several runs in Adelaide of ten consecutive days over 40C from what you say. In the 70’s and 80’s.That is some sort of record isn’t it.
Would you please provide some back up to your claim, something from the BOM to prove your statement is correct. That would be great.
Thanks in advance.
Malcolm Hill,
If you use that page look at the mean temperature across the Murray Darling Basin you will find a significant cause of the decrease in water across the basin. As the temperatures ramp up we are seeing less and less run-off into the streams and rivers. (Although, admittedly you are right that the way the system is managed is having a severe impact also – in spite of long running refusal by politicians and industry bodies to accept that there was a limit to exploitation of the resource beyond which the system’s ecology would begin to collapse, along with the rural industries and and communities that are dependant on it.)
As for the current temperatures in Adelaide, it’s more informative if you put it in context. According to the Australian BOM:
# In 2009 the mean temperature was 1.3°C above average for South Australia as a whole, a record since the area averaged state figures begin in 1910. This is the 17th consecutive year that above average temperatures has occurred.
# Many locations around South Australia recorded record warmest nights in 2009 when averaged across the year as a whole.
# For Adelaide, 2009 was the equal warmest year with 2007, being 1.3°C above average for mean annual temperature, while several locations mainly inland, had warmest years on record.
# 2009 saw a very significant late January and early February heatwave event and the first spring heatwave for Adelaide as temperatures as a whole for November exceeded previous November temperature records by very significant margins. Temperatures were also very much above average in mid-August.
# Rainfall was generally near to slightly below average in 2009, with rainfall across the state as a whole 88 percent of the average for the year.
# After low summer rainfall, the remainder of the year tended slightly above average each month, apart from May, August and October. Growing Season (April to October rainfall) was slightly above average for this year, and the wettest since 2000.
# Temperatures for the decade from 2000 to 2009 averaged +0.9°C for the state as a whole, the warmest decade in the record, and continuing a steady increase in temperatures since the 1970’s. Rainfall across the decade, for South Australia, has been below average across the agricultural areas, particularly in the eastern districts, tending above average in the far west of the state.
The BOM’s Annual Australian Climate Statement 2009 is informative also