Australia Braces: Temps Forecast As High As 116F Over Weekend As Bushfires, Winds Build - Reuters

[hatrack]

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Firefighters with aircraft and thermal imaging equipment tackled bushfires in and near Australia's two largest cities late on Friday as the country's densely populated southeast braced for a major heatwave. Forecasts that searing hot weather over the weekend could bring the worst bushfires for decades put much of the country on alert, with fire bans in three states and warnings that arsonists would be harshly dealt with.

Nursing homes were warned to be ready after several deaths during a heatwave last week. The temperature in the outback town of Ivanhoe in New South Wales (NSW) state is forecast to reach 47 degrees Celsius (116 Fahrenheit) on Saturday and the coastal cities of Sydney and Melbourne will bake under 40-plus Celsius.

EDIT

"It's just going to be probably ... the worst day ever in the history of the state in terms of temperatures and winds," Victoria state premier John Brumby told reporters on Friday. "The state is just tinder dry, so people need to exercise real commonsense tomorrow, if you don't need to go out don't go out, it's a seriously bad day," he said.

Authorities fear the heatwave, which last week caused major blackouts and left thousands of residents without air conditioning, could again be fatal to the elderly. There were 22 "sudden deaths" in Adelaide last Friday at the height of the heatwave and several in Melbourne. "This is about protecting our nation's frail and aged," said Minister for Aging Justine Elliot, in warning nursing homes to prepare for the heatwave. Nursing homes in southeast Australia care for some 170,000 residents.

EDIT

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5150VO20090206?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews

[Royal Sloan 09]

1. coming here this summer? Oh happy happy joy joy,

[rurallib]

2. Australia seems to be the most affected by global warming consequences

so far. Long drought, typhoon, much heat in the last few years.

[hatrack]

3. Australia's the beta for climate destabilization, Mexico for oil depletion

At least we'll have some idea as to what to expect . . .

[depakid]

8. Hottest day on record for Melbourne- 47.5 (118)

as reported on Weather Underground.

Some "highlights" from The Age:

Melbourne's all-time weather record has been broken and the city is sweltering under the twin effects of high temperatures and hot north-west winds. The city hit 46.4 degrees at 3.04pm - the hottest day since the Bureau of Meteorology started keeping records 150 years ago.

The previous record was 45.6, set on January 13, 1939 - a day otherwise known as Black Thursday.

"I've got a massive spreadsheet here of maximum temperatures and it doesn't mean anything any more. The whole thing's gonna have to be rewritten," BoM senior forecaster Terry Ryan said. "Most places around the state will break all-time records."

The town of Avalon, 50km south-west of Melbourne also broke its hottest-day record, reaching 47.9 degrees at 2.50pm. Wind gusts of up to 82kmh have also been reported at Melbourne Airport, where it was a sweltering 46.8 degrees at 3.03pm.

Melbourne's peak also breaks the previous February record of 43.2, set on February 8, 1983 - remembered by many as the day of a massive dust storm.

Today's record is also hotter than Ash Wednesday, on February 16, 1983.

Relief, however, is on the way with the cool change reported to have passed through Warnambool and Port Fairy in Victoria's south-west. This should put it on target to reach the city about 6pm, Mr Ryan said. Temperatures are expected to drop by around 15 degrees in the first hour, though little rain is expected.

More: http://www.theage.com.au/national/city-swelters-records-tumble-in-heat-20090207-80ai.html
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"The change" is something North America doesn't experience. Temperatures drop dramatically- and can stay down for for days, before returning to "normal" weather. Often, -but not always, there are thunderstorms associated with "the change," though at least on the east side of the dividing range (New South Wales) they're almost never "dry" storms of the sort one sees in the American west. Genrally, you get a preyty heavy soaking, which is helpful in keeping bushfires at bay.

[depakid]

14. Temperature at 12:00 am 21 (70 farenheit)

Wow.

Gotta love those southerlies.

[Barrett808]

4. Yup. Very worried about agriculture in the Murray-Darling basin.

Australia may not be able to feed itself soon...

[kestrel91316]

5. Sounds like the heat wave we had last June here in the San Fernando Valley.

Went on for about 10 days, daytime temps over 112 and getting up to 117 on 2 consecutive days, barely dropping down to 80-85 in the wee hours of the morning............my car blew a couple of gaskets, and the TWO AC units almost couldn't keep my apartment habitable. Circuit breaker blew at the clinic and I lost AC there, had to evacuate the cats, then lost power altogether (sagging wires, tree branches) for a couple of days.

I was actually afraid. If power had failed at home, I and my pets would have been in real danger.

[NNadir]

6. And your response was what?

To sit around at the computer typing out stuff about how you hate the world's largest, by far, source of climate change gas free energy?

Why am I not impressed with your need for electricity?

Oh I know why...

Because the major source of electricity in your state is dangerous natural gas.

http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/electricity_generation.html

I increasingly have very, very, very, very, very, very little patience with the anti-nuke consumer set.

The growth of dangerous natural gas in your state in one year exceeds by far the entire output of the wind and solar toys on which you are trying to bet the lives of my children, who I suspect, you hold are far lower value than your cats.

To a man, to a woman, the dangerous anti-nuke set consists almost entirely of arsonists complaining about fire damage.

[XemaSab]

7. Why are you hating on kestrel?

This tirade directed towards her really is uncalled for.

[depakid]

9. Sounds like what Melbourne and Adelaide have been going through

Except that whole areas of the cities have been blacked out because their grid couldn't handle the loads.

My guess is that it was also a lot hotter in parts of the Valley than the official 117.

A bit like this:

THE weather bureau tells Lou Bennett it's 44 degrees. But he trusts better his own thermometer, rigged up on the back verandah. It says 52. (125.6 farenheit)

It doesn't really matter anyway, whatever the number, the sun feels oppressively, infernally hot, and he'll be out in it.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/the-sun-rises-on-our-worst-day-in-history-20090206-7zzf.html

[XemaSab]

10. 125?

:dies:

[depakid]

11. That's beyond stinking hot...

Just saw on ABC at 7:00 pm today (Saturday) that "the change" had arrived. Current temp is now 32.7 and the high looks to be 26 (78) tomorrow and highs of 20 (68) throughout next week. Hopefully, it will help with the bushfires.

Unfortunately, the heat low headed our way- looks to be 40 in the Newcastle area tomorrow, and there are already a few bushfires up the Hunter, in and around Wollemi National Park.

[XemaSab]

12. The thing that freaks me out about Ozzie bushfires versus American forest fires

is that most of our fires are in chapperel or coniferous forest. Yeah, it burns, but you can usually get crews in there to attack it.

Yours are in eucalyptus, and that stuff is just explosive. The Oakland hills fire was fed by introduced eucalyptus stands, and that was really horrible.

How do you fight something that oily, and with such a thick litter layer on the forest floor? :shrug:

[depakid]

13. They spread incredibly fast

Which one of the reasons why the Oakland Hills fire killed and injured so many people.

Ash Wednesday was oneof the big ones in Oz:

More than 100 fires started on Feb. 16, 1983, sweeping across Victoria and South Australia and killing 75 people, according to state government data.

Now that the change has hit Victoria, the fires spread in new directions. People who were safe before- are now in the way.

Unfortunately, just like California- a good many Bush fires are started by arsonists (or idiots) :mad:

A man has been arrested for allegedly starting a bushfire at Peats Ridge on the New South Wales Central Coast.

Police say the 31-year-old was arrested on the Pacific Highway and was taken to Gosford Police Station. Rural Fire Service spokeswoman Rebel Talbert says some of the fires in Peats Ridge are threatening homes and there is also a risk from falling embers.

"We're actually asking residents at this stage to stay with their properties and take direction from firefighters," she said. Ms Talbert says they are are asking residents of Nardoo Road in Peats Ridge to assist firefighters. Ms Talbert says the hot and windy conditions have seen many of the 40 fires that started today spread rapidly.

Authorities are carefully monitoring fires at Muswellbrook, Tumut, the Bega Valley, Wybong in the Hunter Valley and Wollemi National Park in the Singleton area.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/07/2485203.htm

Not sure that it's related to the fires west of here, but there have been a ton more than usual bats flying over the house from that direction. Probably several hundred over the last hour and a half.

Grey Heads- not the largest fruit bats- but pretty damn big compared with the little insect eaters in the Northwest.

[kestrel91316]

15. When I was in the house in Encino, I routinely had temps of at least

118 on the patio out back, and I don't know how much of that was the heat island effect from the patio concrete. My thermometer eventually died on a REALLY hot day, so who knows how high it was really getting out there. No wonder I struggled so had to get anything to grow in that garden......