Australia heat wave

Tropical Tidbits

Australia on Tuesday recorded its hottest day on record, with an average temperature across the country of 40.9 degrees Celsius, or 105.6 degrees Fahrenheit — passing the 2013 record of 40.3 C.

Meteorologists predicted temperatures would increase further in the coming days and issued a health warning for people living in the southeastern part country.

The record-breaking heat comes in the context of a difficult year in Australia that saw devastating bushfires ravage the country and the longest, farthest-reaching period of poor air quality on record.

2019 has been marked by a series of extreme weather events, including a record-breaking heat wave in France, unusually warm temperatures in Greenland, and an intense hurricane season in the US, which featured the strongest hurricane ever recorded.

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Australia on Tuesday recorded its hottest day ever, as the average temperature across the country peaked at 40.9 degrees Celsius, or 105.6 degrees Fahrenheit — passing the January 2013 record of 40.3 C, or 104 F.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology on Wednesday said temperatures were set to intensify further in the coming days and warned of a heightened danger of fires across the country as a result.

"We're expecting large areas of inland South Australia, Victoria, and New South Wales to experience temperatures in the mid- to high 40s," Sarah Scully, a meteorologist at Australian Bureau of Meteorology, said in a statement.

The record-breaking heat comes in the context of a difficult year in Australia that saw devastating bushfires ravage the country and the longest, farthest-reaching period of poor air quality on record.

Extreme weather has plagued much of the planet in 2019, with Europe battling a record-breaking heat wave in June and July and the strongest hurricane in recorded history hitting the Caribbean in late August and early September, to name just two.

Some other extreme weather conditions around the world this year include:

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Australia heatwave December 2019 .JPG

Reuters/David Crosling

The Bureau of Meteorology in Australia issued a health warning to people in the southeastern part of the country this week, with the heat-wave conditions and smoke from the fires expected to have a "large impact on people's health."

—Bureau of Meteorology, Australia (@BOM_au) December 18, 2019

Dr. Blair Trewin, a climatologist at the Bureau of Meteorology, said temperatures would reach extreme numbers on Wednesday and Thursday and were expected to reach at least a degree higher than the 2013 record.

Trewin said scientists were also expecting to see record temperatures in December overall.

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