Heatwave and Fire Threat Grip Southeast Australia

Let's start by taking a look at today's forecast. We want to focus in on these dark red and purple areas. That's where we're forecasting temperatures over 40 °C. And we can see that the heat is mostly concentrated over eastern parts of Western Australia today, and parts of South Australia.

But as we go into tomorrow, this trough is going to drag that heat into New South Wales and down to Victoria, even as far south as Melbourne, heading for a top of 40 °C. This trough will give a bit of a cool change to some coastal areas. Somewhere, like Adelaide, heading for 42 °C, with that cool change expected in the mid to late afternoon.

The cool change will also arrive in the mid to late afternoon on the south-west coast of Victoria, but for Melbourne it's probably not going to arrive until late at night, if not the early hours of Sunday morning.

So on Sunday we have seen that cool change move through. So a bit of relief in the south, but the heat hasn't gone anywhere, it's just moved inland. Still very hot temperatures over inland New South Wales, much of South Australia and even into south-west Queensland. Sydney heading for 33 °C and Brisbane 35 °C.

On Monday that cool change has moved up the coast, bringing some relief to Sydney but still heading for 37 °C in Brisbane. But the main heat is now being dragged back down over South Australia, 43 °C over Adelaide again. And the next trough is now going to drag this heat back down over Victoria into Tuesday. A top of 41 °C for Melbourne. This could well be the hottest day for parts of Victoria. Again, records may be broken.

Over to New South Wales, as we go into Wednesday, that could well be the hottest day for New South Wales. Many places through inland New South Wales looking at potentially record breaking temperatures on Wednesday, and the heat even lingers into Thursday. In fact, it might not take until next weekend for us to see that heat flushed all the way out.

Looking at our fire dangers now, we can see that for today, we have widespread High Fire Danger across South Australia, with Extreme Fire Danger in the eastern Eyre Peninsula, the Yorke Peninsula and the Mount Lofty Ranges.

But it's really tomorrow we're going to see those fire dangers peaking over South Australia. Widespread, Extreme Fire Danger through the south, reaching catastrophic over the Yorke Peninsula and catastrophic conditions, means any fires that start will be almost impossible to control. We also see that Extreme Fire Danger moving into eastern parts of Victoria.

On Sunday, the High Fire Danger extending across Victoria reaching extreme in the north-east. Now, we are lucky this weekend that we don't have as much wind over Victoria as we saw back on the 9th of January, but we're still looking at significant fire conditions over the weekend.

Into Monday we see that Extreme Fire Danger moving into parts of New South Wales, as well.

In terms of heatwave, we have widespread Heatwave Warnings, Severe Heatwave Warnings across most of South Australia, much of new South Wales and also northern Victoria. And as we go over the weekend and into next week, we'll see those warnings extending to parts of southern Victoria as well.

We're going to continue to see those warnings lingering through the week, as this is a very long-lasting event and also see more extreme heatwave areas through parts of northern Victoria, parts of New South Wales, and even up into southern Queensland.

So in terms of impacts from this heat, of course we are expecting increased risk from bushfires. Any fires will be very hard to control in these conditions and are likely to pose a risk to life and property.

Risk to health and decision making. Heatwaves are our most dangerous severe weather, and it's important to take precautions because not only is it a risk to health for vulnerable people, but even healthy people make poor decisions after a few nights of bad sleep and trouble staying cool.

And of course, we're expecting stress on power and infrastructure networks not only from the heat, but also from the risk of fire.

So with so much going on, it's going to be really important to stay up to date with the latest forecasts and warnings on the Bureau's website and the BOM Weather app. Your local emergency services will also be issuing warnings and fire bans, so make sure you follow all their advice.

Stay safe and we'll see you in the next update.