The sunny weather has arrived with a bang – not with a whimper – and has taken us all from pasty, winter-hardened rugged up idiots straight into short-shorts and diving-for-any-source-of-nearby-water-to-swim-in sweaty messes, as an unseasonable October heatwave forces us all to emerge from our caves; blinking, we step into the sun.
And if you’ve been thinking that this spate of A+ weather has been a wee bit unusual, you’re not mistaken.
The heatwave that’s been blasting the south eastern states is an absolute beaut. And, in a lot of cases, is presenting record-breaking temperatures that exceed past Springtime highs.
Melbourne in particular is having some history re-written today as the mercury tops out at 34 degrees, making it the hottest maximum temperature ever seen for this time of year.
With tomorrow’s forecast maximum of 35, combined with the highs reached over the weekend, it’s set to put this string of days as the hottest opening to October the state has seen in some 75 years. Which is fairly in tune with our nation’s habit of having bi-polar weather, following on from shivering through the coldest winter in some 26 years.
Meanwhile, Sydney has been lapping up a glorious run of Long Weekend Weather, with the temperature topping out at 2:30pm this afternoon on a hefty 36.8 degrees – some 15 whole degrees above the usual average high for this time of year.
Around the city, Olympic Park maxed out at 37.5, Bankstown is feeling a late afternoon burn with current temperatures at 37.2, and Penrith isn’t far behind with a current mark of around 37.0.
Elsewhere in the country, Adelaide is currently enjoying a day some 14 degrees above average, peaking at a sweaty 35.3. Canberra‘s peak came at around lunchtime with 31 degrees – 12 above average. And Hobart is nudging 29, which is (again) well above the average October temperature of 17.
If these trends continue…
…ayyyy!
The (sort of) good news for us all is that normalcy is fast approaching, with a cool change expected to hit the Eastern Seaboard at around 5pm tomorrow evening.
But tonight, at least, will be a hot and sweaty one.
Bust out those fans, pals.
