Damaging wind and the risk of storms across the south

Australian Community Media

Heatwave conditions bringing severe storms across the south of the nation.

Transcript

00:00Record setting temperatures have been felt across parts of Australia in recent days and

00:04it will be another very hot day today that will contribute towards dangerous fire conditions

00:09for parts of New South Wales in particular.

00:11I'm Angus here at the Bureau with a severe weather update.

00:13Today is the 22nd of October but I wanted to start with some observations from the 21st

00:18of October.

00:19These are the maximum temperatures recorded yesterday and let's zoom into the key area

00:24which was the Queensland New South Wales border area.

00:27Some incredible temperatures across central Australia on Tuesday, but I wanted to highlight

00:32two in particular, Birdsville here in Queensland at 46.1 degrees and Bourke here in New South

00:38Wales at 44.8 degrees.

00:41Both of these temperatures were state records for the warmest ever temperature recorded in

00:46October anywhere in the state, at least since reliable record keeping began in about 1910.

00:53And I wanted to show you these record setting temperatures just to show you, just to highlight

00:57that the temperatures we're dealing with this week, they are right at the top of the scale.

01:01These are typically temperatures that we would only see in a summer heatwave, but it is still

01:06spring and we are seeing these incredibly warm temperatures and that means today other parts

01:10of the country are going to feel the incredible warmth as well.

01:13It is mostly eastern focused again.

01:15We've seen a slight shift in the areas of heat from Birdsville and Bourke, a little bit more

01:20to the east.

01:21Still got 40 degrees plus through large parts of Queensland.

01:24The main difference for today's maximum temperatures is some of that heat gets right down towards

01:29the New South Wales coast.

01:30A very hot day for this populated part of the country, 39 degrees in Sydney for this afternoon

01:36and I wouldn't rule out parts of the metro area brushing 40 for a time today.

01:41Also 39 in Newcastle and maybe parts of the Hunter could be close to 40 as well.

01:45Same thing for the central coast, Wollongong not far behind at 37 degrees and Canberra

01:50at 31 degrees.

01:52So it's an extremely hot day for eastern parts of New South Wales.

01:55That's a good 12 to 15 degrees higher than average for this time of year and it's not

02:00just going to be a hot one as well.

02:02The heat is going to be driven by some strong wind.

02:05So at the time of recording it's only about 25 degrees on the New South Wales coast.

02:09That's because that strong wind has not yet kicked in.

02:12But a little bit later on, about lunch time, anticipate this very hot wind to start to

02:16race across eastern parts of New South Wales.

02:19It's windy in Victoria too but New South Wales, the real focus here, it is going to get very

02:23breezy.

02:24That wind is packing a lot of heat and when you hear about hot winds at this time of

02:28year you should be wondering about fire danger.

02:31And indeed we will be seeing elevated fire danger across eastern parts of the country.

02:35Extreme fire danger through the Greater Hunter, the Sydney metro region and the Illawarra Shoalhaven

02:40area as well as parts of the western slopes in New South Wales.

02:44There are a number of total fire bans in place and in conditions like this, if any fires do

02:49ignite or if there are any ongoing bushfires through these areas, they can spread extremely

02:55quickly and be very hard for fired crews to control and contain.

02:59So absolute caution is required with all things to do with fire across New South Wales for the

03:04day today.

03:05Let's jump ahead now and look at temperatures for tomorrow, we'll see some pretty big shifts

03:08as well.

03:09New South Wales is much, much cooler tomorrow, about 15 degrees cooler for the east coast

03:14as the wind shifts to a lighter, cooler southerly flow.

03:17Further north, the temperatures continue to be very, very warm, well above average for the

03:22time of year.

03:23We continue to see 40 degrees or higher through central Queensland, parts of the Northern Territory,

03:28and parts of Northern WA.

03:30This heat along Northern Australia will continue for multiple days.

03:34That's Thursday, this is Friday where the pattern is very much the same and a heads up

03:38for the weekend, the pattern remains very much the same through Saturday and Sunday.

03:43This means that in the second half of this week, from Wednesday through Friday, we've

03:46got heatwave conditions and heatwave warnings in place across large parts of Northern Australia,

03:52especially Queensland and the Territory.

03:54Long, strong heatwaves in store for the next five to seven days up here.

03:59It doesn't look like it's cooling off in some of these Northern areas until around about

04:03the middle of next week.

04:06Some of the impacts of these heatwaves can be, but not limited to, an increased risk of

04:10bushfires in these hot dry areas up north.

04:13Really difficult to sleep and keep yourself cool, so that requires lots of water, lots of

04:18shade.

04:19Get indoors if you can, and if you have to spend time outdoors for work, do take plenty

04:23of breaks to keep yourself cool.

04:25Lots of stress on the power and infrastructure network expected in the north as well, under

04:29these very hot conditions.

04:32So active weather around large parts of Australia, not just today, but for the next several days,

04:36and you can stay up to date with the latest on the Bureau's website and app.

04:39Thanks for watching and stay safe.

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