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BoM data says Tuesday’s 40.9C was the hottest average maximum across the whole country ever recorded, as extreme heat moves across South Australia to Melbourne, Victoria and Sydney, NSW, and bushfires continued. This blog is now closed
It is still unpleasantly warm here in Melbourne, and across much of southern Australia east of the Nullarbor. Fire activity is predicted to increase tomorrow and on Friday.
Here is a roundup of where things stand:
As of Wednesday afternoon there were about 70 bushfires burning across Queensland.
Oodnadatta and Port Augusta forecast to reach 48C and Sydney’s western suburbs to hit 45C
December heat records are expected to tumble in Australia from Wednesday as a heatwave moves across South Australia to Victoria and New South Wales.
Temperatures are forecast to peak in Victoria and South Australia on Friday, with Oodnadatta and Port Augusta to reach 48C, and peak in NSW on Saturday.
Up to 20 properties lost in Blue Mountains as megafire burns outside Sydney, while fires also threaten communities in Western Australia and Queensland
About 2,000 firefighters are currently fighting more 108 active bushfires in NSW.
The RFS have issued a new emergency warning for areas near Muswellbrook.
EMERGENCY WARNING - Kerry Ridge fire (Muswellbrook, Singleton and Mid-Western LGA) Fire activity increasing. If you are in the area of Olinda, Nullo Mountain and Bogee, watch out for embers that may start fires ahead of the main fire front. #nswrfs#nswfires#alertpic.twitter.com/6UEV0imNRS
David Bowman says Australia must retrofit houses to make them heat and smoke-proof
Australia has a “massive adaptive program” ahead to prepare for future protracted bushfires and subsequent air pollution, a professor of pyrogeography and fire science has warned, urging politicians to “tone down the ideology and start solving the problem using the skills Australians have”.
David Bowman, the director of the Fire Centre at the University of Tasmania’s school of natural sciences, said it was too late to call for action to prevent climate change and that people affected by smoke inhalation from fires should demand action to adapt to it, such as retrofitting houses to make them heat and smoke-proof.
Almost 3,000 firefighters across New South Wales will be deployed as more than 80 bushfires continue to burn and temperatures are expected to hit 40C. Follow all the latest updates
The Bureau of Meteorology says a southerly wind later this afternoon will help ease the smoke choking Sydney this morning, though it may not help firefighters battling blazes across the rest of the state.
A smoky start for #Sydney, with #smoke from nearby fires trapped overnight in a low-layer of the atmosphere, causing it to become concentrated. A southerly buster this afternoon will help reduce the smoke, especially nearer the coast. Health info re smoke: https://t.co/I3gS1GMBVApic.twitter.com/WJCrmDHsrv
Conditions ease but Labor urges emergency Coag meeting before extreme heat in NSW and Victoria
Firefighters have taken advantage of less extreme conditions to try to contain blazes burning across New South Wales ahead of worsening conditions and soaring temperatures expected on Tuesday.
More than 100 fires were still burning across NSW on Sunday, including the massive Gospers Mountain blaze, which is expected to burn for weeks.
Gospers Mountain, Paddock Run and Little L Complex, Three Mile and Thompson Creek fires overlap, and there are now sevenemergency warnings in NSW as fire conditions worsen along Australia’s New South Wales and Queensland coasts. This blog is now closed
More than 10% of the area covered by New South Wales national parks has been burned in this season’s bushfires, including 20% of the Blue Mountains world heritage area, state government data obtained by Guardian Australia has revealed.
The amount of bushland destroyed within NSW national parks dwarfs that of the entire previous fire season, when 80,000 hectares were lost.
Bureau of Meteorology says extreme conditions of all kinds can be expected from Sunday, with large hail forecast for south-eastern Queensland
Queensland and New South Wales have been warned to prepare for severe storms bringing dust, 90km/h winds and hail, followed by three days of even worse bushfire conditions.
The Bureau of Meteorology said severe storms would blow across inland southern Queensland on Saturday night, bringing damaging wind, dust storms and the possibility of dry lightning. South-eastern Queensland can expect damaging winds and large hail on Sunday.
Temperatures top 40C in Victoria’s north as up to 11 properties hit by fire in South Australia, while NSW and Tasmania face difficult conditions
Record-breaking spring temperatures helped spark and fan bushfires across the country on Thursday, forecasting a potentially devastating bushfire summer.
In Victoria, 100km/h winds fanned more than 60 blazes, as an unprecedented heatwave moved north to south, drawing comparisons with the “worst conditions you’d see in February or March” from the state’s emergency services minister Lisa Neville.
Extreme heat hits across the country as parts of Victoria prepare for worst possible bushfire conditions on Thursday
All of Australia’s mainland states, and the Northern Territory, had areas that reached more than 40C on Wednesday, as a code red bushfire warning was issued for parts of Victoria for Thursday.
By 3pm AEDT on Wednesday, the highest temperatures recorded were 43.4C at Smithville in New South Wales and 42C at Walpepup in Victoria. Ballera in Queensland reached 43.7C, Warburton in WA got 43.8C, Nullarbor in South Australia recorded 46.6C and Lajamanu in the Northern Territory had hit 42.7C.
Severe isolated thunderstorms forecast in Queensland, which could create dry lightning strikes that start more fires
Forty-degree heat and catastrophic conditions in Western Australia and lightning strikes in Queensland could intensify fires over the weekend as Australia enters its second week of sustained bushfires.
As of Saturday morning, conditions in New South Wales had eased slightly but the NSW Rural Fire Service said anuncontrolled bushfire burning through more than 100,000 hectares near Sydney’s northwestern outskirts was unlikely to be contained before weather conditions worsen.
Catastrophic fire conditions in New South Wales ease, but dozens of Australian bushfires remain burning. In Queensland, 60 fires are burning, with strong winds and temperatures in mid-30s forecast to make for hazardous conditions on Australia’s east coast
Residents of Pechey (near Hampton) have been told to leave now, and head towards the New England highway.
“There is a bushfire in Pechey and Hampton and conditions are getting worse,” QFES says. “A fast moving fire is travelling from Grapetree Road towards Deeth Road, Sewell Road, Parker Road, Bush Road and Misty Mountain Road. It is currently impacting Parker Road and Sewell Road. The fire could have on the significant impact on the community.”
Images of Walkers Point, which is also at “leave now”.
Residents at Walkers Point, south of Bundaberg, are being told to evacuate to Woodgate with firefighters battling a large bushfire @abcnewspic.twitter.com/pffLy1elsV
More than 575 NSW schools to close as conditions forecast to worsen on Tuesday, while dozens of bushfires continue to burn across Australia’s east coast. This blog is now closed
This is where we’ll leave our rolling coverage today. Guardian Australia will be covering all the developments tomorrow. Here’s what’s happened so far:
ABC Weather has published an explanation of why Tuesday is looking so bad: it’s a cold front.
“Tomorrow with the winds you’ll be seeing a more south-easterly direction,” Grace Legge, senior forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology, told the ABC.
More than 130 bushfires continue to burn, with three people dead and 150 properties destroyed, and conditions set to worsen
The greater Sydney region will face catastrophic fire danger on Tuesday for the first time since the rating was introduced and fire authorities say conditions in other parts of New South Wales could also be set to worsen.
The warning was issued as more than 80 fires continued to burn in the north of the state late on Sunday.
There have been a few questions to the PM, including one about the ferocity of these early fires and links to climate change.
“My only thoughts today are those who lost their lives and their families, the firefighters fighting the fires, the response effort that has to be delivered, and how the the Commonwealth can support those efforts,” he replied.
“We always have to listen carefully to the warnings, and undertake the preparations that are advised in every single season. I think that Australians increasingly understand that and I would be encouraging them to revisit their fire preparation plans. The fire might be on your doorstep today, but as we go into every fire season and every summer season, the risk is ever present, and it’s important that families understand what the evacuation procedures are. What numbers to call. What things to ready themselves with, and how they can best prepare their properties in the event of a firestorm.”
Prime minister Scott Morrison is speaking now – and he’s flagged a “contingency option” of further involvement of the defence forces.
He said the deployment of ADF – beyond the airlifts they’re already doing – hadn’t been requested yet, but he and relevant ministers were discussing having them ready.
Irregularity known as Indian Ocean dipole bringing weather extremes across region
Twenty years ago in 1999 a new weather pattern was described for the first time. Now it has shifted up a gear and is causing devastation across east Africa.
The Indian Ocean dipole, sometimes called the Indian El Niño, is an irregular oscillation in which the surface temperature of the sea is alternatively greater in the ocean’s west and its east. The positive phase, when it is warmer in the west, sees more rain in the west and greater chance of drought in the east. These are reversed in a negative phase.
Hot and windy weather has created volatile conditions along parts of Australia’s east coast
Parts of Australia faced an unprecedented bushfire threat on Friday evening as more than 100 blazes burned across coastal New South Wales and Queensland.
Communities on NSW’s mid-north coast and the far north coast were battling the worst of the conditions, which were described by authorities as “uncharted territory” and that led to a dramatic, orange-red glow descending on the fire-threatened city of Port Macquarie.
Guardian Australia reports from three communities hard hit by one of the worst droughts in living memory
Australia is experiencing one of its most severe droughts on record, resulting in desperate water shortages across large parts of New South Wales and southern Queensland. Dams in some parts of western NSW have all but dried up, with rainfall levels through the winter in the lowest 10% of historical records in some areas.
The crisis in the far west of the state became unavoidable after the mass fish kills along the lower Darling River last summer, but now much bigger towns closer to the coast, including Dubbo, are also running out of water.
Hundreds of people are holed up in evacuation centres on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast as crews wait to see how many homes have been lost to a ferocious fire, while firefighters in New South Wales are still battling out-of-control fires near the border.
There are fears of significant property losses, with a destructive blaze still burning out of control at Peregian Beach and Peregian Breeze Estate, south of Noosa.