Bureau of Meteorology’s manager of severe weather Simon Louis said such high temperatures this early in the season meant Sydney was experiencing a "low intensity heatwave". "One thing that our heatwave system does take into account is people’s level of acclimatisation," he said. Sunrise at Newport Beach on Friday. Credit:Nick Moir "We do see that this early in the season, people aren’t as acclimatised to the warm conditions, so we can get the heatwave classification at these lower temperature levels." He said that while temperatures were high, it wouldn't be breaking any November records - though if it had come a couple of days earlier, it would have almost certainly broken October records.

The sea breeze that usually cools down the city's eastern suburbs was being held off by strong westerlies, so the city shouldn't expect a cool change on Friday afternoon. Much of NSW including the metropolitan area can also expect warm conditions to continue overnight, before a cool change on Saturday morning, Mr Louis said. "Particularly for Sydney, we’re really not expecting this cool change to reach … it will just get into the far south west of the state quite late [on Friday] evening. It will be ... early morning [Saturday] until that cooler air gets through." Saturday morning will be warm, with an overnight low of 24 degrees ahead of a maximum in the city of 30 degrees.

Fires burn near Canberra and Newcastle Firefighters were already battling an out-of-control blaze south-west of Canberra on Thursday night and continue to fight it today. The fire is burning erratically at Pierces Creek, about 8km from the nearest suburb. The fire at Pierces Creek, near Canberra. Credit:Jamila Toderas Early on Friday afternoon, the fire had burnt through 114 hectares, and nearby residents had been urged to activate their bushfire emergency plans. Horses were being moved out of danger and one school was evacuated as a precaution. At 1.45pm, it remained at a watch and act level, but was burning erratically towards the suburb of Tuggeranong. There was no threat to property, and no evacuations have been ordered.

The Rural Fire Service issued a Watch and Act alert about 3pm on Friday afternoon for an out-of-control blaze burning at Freemans Waterhole near Lake Macquarie. The fire was contained by about 4pm. While there's no threat to property now, smoke is visible from the M1 and drivers are urged to take caution. In the nation's capital, the Bureau is warning of wind speeds of up to 90km/h on Friday afternoon, with average wind speeds at Canberra Airport of up to 65km/h, with a top of 30 degrees. Inside the Ku Ring Gai National Park. Credit:Nick Moir

The NSW Rural Fire Service raised the fire danger to severe for the Southern Ranges, Illawarra, Greater Sydney and Hunter regions at lunchtime on Friday. Total fire bans are in place across those regions. Wind gusts are expected to reach up to 80km/h in some areas, including Goulburn, adding to the propensity for dangerous bushfires. "It's important on the first real hot and windy day [of the season] people take five minutes to discuss with their family what to do in case of a fire," RFS Inspector Ben Sheppard told AAP. The RFS is keeping an eye out on a fire in the Wollemi National Park, north-east of Rylstone. No properties are under threat, however the blaze is expected to grow. Locals cool off at Bents Basin in western Sydney. Credit:Wolter Peeters

Multiple small grassfires are also being reported across the state. On Thursday a number of areas set new maximum temperature records for this time of year, including Goulburn (32.2), Wagga (37.6), Albury (37.2) and Young (34.8). The warm spell is expected to last until the middle of next week, when much of the state is forecast to receive some rain accompanied by milder temperatures. Sydney may collect as much as 35 millimetres of rain on Wednesday, the bureau predicts. Exceptionally warm Australia was "exceptionally warm" last month, with mean temperatures 1.83 degrees above the 1961-90 average, making it the fourth warmest October on record, the bureau said.

Minimum temperatures were the second warmest on record, behind only 2015. Nationally, rainfall was 11 per cent higher than normal for the month. NSW posted its first above-average month of rain in 2018, collecting 10 per cent more than usual. Loading Temperatures remained on the warm side for NSW, with the state marking its third warmest October on record for mean temperatures, with readings 2.44 degrees above average. For the first 10 months of 2018, NSW daytime temperatures are running at a record high.