Warm welcome: Sunrise in St Kilda on Wednesday morning. Credit:Leigh Henningham It's bad news for Melburnians who have spent the past two weeks tossing and turning, with warm weather showing no signs of abating. Hot nights naturally follow hot days, with this month also set to bust the record for the city's warmest March in 77 years. The average temperature this month is 27.4 degrees, well above the normal average of 23.9 degrees. Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Richard Carlyon said the heat was hanging around for now, with no significant cold fronts forecast in coming weeks.

"Right across the state we've got temperaturess well above average but for Melbourne we've got some maximum temps up to six degrees above average," he said. "So we're sitting on the second warmest March on record for the Melbourne area so far. "We're averaging around 27.5 degrees and there's no sign in the forecast of any temperatures lower than that, so it's likely this sort of temperature will roll on for the rest of the week," he said. "Following on from the forecast for the next week, it looks like we'll get through two thirds of the month with near record-breaking temperatures."

The unseasonable heat has been accompanied by many reports of children locked in hot cars. As the mercury hit 32 degrees on Tuesday, authorities received eight calls to children locked in cars across Victoria. Firefighters rescued one toddler in Springvale who was hospitalised with heat distress after being found accidentally locked in a car. Conditions in the state are also some of the driest on record, with this autumn so far the driest in a decade. Just 0.4mm of rain has fallen on the state this month, with no significant rain on the horizon.

A mild cold front will move through the city on Thursday, lowering temperatures to a balmy 25 degrees and potentially bringing up to 5mm of rain. Temperatures will be back in the low 30s by Saturday, with firefighters on high alert due to dry and hot conditions. Emergency Management Commissioner Craig Lapsley​ said the fire danger rating would remain very high through the weekend. "We've seen a couple of fires that have got up and run really hard. We've got fires in remote areas that are now very hard to control," he said. "It's still very dry. If you have a look at your own gardens, you'll see it already changing. A number of gardens have dried right out, grasses have dried right out, so we're back into those summer-type conditions.

There are no signs warm weather will ease, with high temperatures predicted until the end of the month and potentially into April. "It's playing out to be a dry, hot end to summer and we've almost got summer-like conditions continuing all the way through," Mr Lapsley said.