Traffic at a stand still on the Hume outside Broadfoard due to melting tar @7NewsMelbourne @Y7News pic.twitter.com/mUocn6vzmN
— Steph Harris (@StephHarris26) January 5, 2018
By now, of course, you’ve heard of the madness in the east. Winter is coming, as they say, and it’s coming fast. Roads are impassable and elderly people are freezing to death on their porches, only to be found by a meal-delivery woman. Meanwhile, in Australia, temperatures are so high that the roads are literally melting. Literally, in a literal sense. The asphalt on a six-mile stretch of highway near Melbourne is going from solid to liquid, which, as you can imagine, isn’t exactly common, although it’s not unheard of. What is unheard of, though, is the record-setting temperature that was recorded in Penrith on Sunday: 47.3°C. The previous record was 47°C. “According to preliminary data Penrith has broken the all time maximum temperature record for both this station and the Sydney Metropolitan area with 47.1 degrees at 1:55pm. Previous record 47.0 on 11/2/2017.” Soon after, they found a slight mistake: “Sorry,” they wrote. “In our earlier checks we missed a 47.8 degrees C temperature recorded at an old Richmond station (now closed) in 1939. 47.3 today still beats the previous Penrith record.”
Australia’s weather forecasting bureau has rated the heatwave as “catastrophic”, as temperatures are expected to hit well past 40°C. Penrith is looking at temperatures of around 45°C, or 113°F. As is generally the case with a heatwave of this scale, wildfires are a serious worry. “It’s exactly what the forecast indicated and when we have fires running that’s obviously a problem for us,” said Craig Lapsley, the state’s emergency management commissioner.
Already, fires just outside of Melbourne are burning uncontrollably, and Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania have now declared a total fire ban. NSW Health authorities are warning people to stay indoors and out of the heat. “A NSW Health study published last month found extreme heatwaves lead to a more than ten percent increase in both deaths and ambulance callouts,” said Dr Ben Scalley, director of environmental health at NSW Health, to The Independent. “They put a lot of strain on the body and can cause dehydration, heat exhaustion and heat stroke.
The heat wave comes on the heels of Australia’s warmest winter on record. The Bureau of Meteorology called it part of a long-term warming trend. “We’ve certainly seen a shortening of our winters,” said Andrew Watkins of the Bureau of Meteorology back in August.
Ambulance Victoria’s state health commander had one more warning for residents: “This heat is a killer,” he said. “It’s going to be like a blast furnace [tomorrow] and you need to adjust what you do.”
