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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Elle Hunt (now) and Adam Brereton with Guardian staff

Australia heatwave: temperatures soar above 40 but no records broken in Sydney – cooling down

People enjoying the cooler morning conditions at Bronte beach in Sydney’s east on Friday morning .
People enjoying the cooler morning conditions at Bronte beach in Sydney’s east on Friday morning. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Eggs

Weather: it happened.

  • Sydney attained its forecast high of 41C, but fell short of the hottest-ever temperature recorded in November
  • The high for Sydney’s Observatory Hill – the official temperature for the city – was 40.9C, recorded just after 3pm
  • The hottest temperature in metropolitan Sydney was recorded at 42.8C, again shortly after 3pm
  • Around 2pm, many cities’ temperatures reached their Friday high: Canberra reached its high of 36C...
  • ...Darwin reached 34.5C
  • ...Brisbane reached nearly 30.9C
  • ...and Perth attained its high of 28.6C
  • Tasmania and Adelaide both reached a high of 22.7C – at 1.27pm and 3.51pm respectively
  • Melbourne peaked (‘peaked’) at 19.1C at noon – there was even a little rain
  • The unseasonally warm weather in New South Wales won’t last for the weekend, with a cold front due to sweep in later this evening
  • You can’t cook an egg on the pavement – at least not in Surry Hills, Sydney. At least we can say we fried.

Thanks for humouring us – see you on Monday, when we’ll do it all again. (Only joking! ...Maybe.)

Stay cool, everyone.

Updated

The Bureau of Meteorology duty forecaster has confirmed that no records were broken at long-standing stations in Sydney today – which seems like a good incentive to start wrapping this blog up. We’ll have a summary soon.

Firefighters appear to be gaining the upper hand with a major blaze in Western Australia’s south, AAP reports.

The lightning-sparked fire at Grass Patch, Salmon Gums and surrounding areas north of Esperance was an emergency earlier this week, when it killed four people.

The victims were later named as local farmer Kym “Freddy” Curnow, 45, Norwegian national Anna Winther, 29, British man Tom Butcher, 31, and German woman Julia Kohrs-Lichte, 19.

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services said mid-morning on Friday that the alert level for the fire had been downgraded to an advice and the Coolgardie-Esperance Highway had been reopened.

The fire is stationary and contained, but not under control.

East of Esperance at the Cape Arid National Park, however, a possible threat to lives and homes remains.

Three separate bushfires in the park have torn through 85,000 hectares, with a Department of Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman saying it was looking worrying.

“We’re going to end up with a very large fire scar at the end of the day,” she told AAP.

It is not contained and burning near private properties.

Closest to Esperance, the third major fire in the shire at Stockyard Creek and Mullet Lakes also remains subject to a watch and act alert.

Earlier on Friday, DFES confirmed property losses in Grass Patch, Salmon Gums and Scaddan, saying two homes and 12 sheds had been destroyed.

DFES said 10 structures including Scaddan Town Hall, homes, farm machinery, sheds and out buildings had also been damaged.

Miraculously, Scaddan Primary School was unscathed although everything around it was all but destroyed.

State of play: 5pm, AEDT

Sydney 39.8C (“cloudy” – it certainly doesn’t look it from the Guardian Australia offices, but BoM knows best)

Canberra 34.6C (“partly cloudy”)

Darwin 33.4C (“possible early storm”)

Brisbane 28.9C (“hot and sunny”)

Perth 27.5C (“mostly sunny. Windy morning”)

Adelaide 21.6C (“cloud clearing”)

Hobart 16.7C (“morning shower or two”)

Melbourne 16.3C (“morning shower or two”)

Bondi beach shows no sign of clearing out soon, judging by this snap from my colleague Nikki Marshall.

Updated

The symptoms of heat exhaustion:

  • Confusion
  • Dark-colored urine
  • Dizziness
  • Fainting
  • Fatigue
  • Headache
  • Muscle or abdominal cramps
  • Nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea
  • Pale skin
  • Profuse sweating
  • Rapid heartbeat

I think I have at least three of them.

I’m hearing murmurings from the news desk that suggest that I might, at some point in the not-too-distant future, be asked to stop live-blogging the weather.

In readiness, here are some of the contributions submitted to our GuardianWitness assignment (which remains open for another week).

I tell you what, it is hot. Not even going to lie. It's a scorcher and i'm feelin' it. Hotter than hot on a day like this. A stinker and a half. Will be going out there later to give that yellow bastard in the sky a gobful.

Hoo boy, what a boiler.

Is it illegal to make university students sit 1:30 exams on days when it is over 35 degrees? It should be. The mere act of dragging myself into university is causing me to lose the will to live.

To all the "Aircon Gen's" as I now call many who live in their climate controlled bubbles, get out and see what is really happening with our climate. Get out of your concrete jungles and see how CC and unseasonal hot weather is affecting not just our environment, but our capability to grow food.

The repercussions are huge.

I suggest you live a day without your climate controlled home, office/workplace, car or PT. Go on give it a go!

I personally have no need at home as I've retrofitted, but the impact of wildlife now coming looking for food and water, is whilst pleasant to see, is devastating on my veggie garden and water supplies.

The "Aircon Gen" is living in fantasy land.

Taken 19 November.

The market at work. Hope the AC’s working on the train today.

Ketan Joshi, who works in the renewable energy industry, has tweeted graphs showing electricity consumption in New South Wales this week and this month. Just after 3pm, it was 12,282 MW (12282000000 watts; 12 gigawatts) and climbing, he says – you can see the “obvious impact” of air conditioner use.

Joshi told me that, if the figures were “a little baffling”, it was because New South Wales has “a slightly odd energy market”.

“As with most days of significant or extreme heat in NSW, there’s been an increase in the state’s electrical demand – in this case, we’ve gone from around 8 gigawatts on Monday and Tuesday all the way up to 12 gigawatts (and climbing!) yesterday and today – obviously, today being much higher due to the utterly insane heat.

“Probably the most interesting thing to me about this is how high demand is [which you can watch live here] during the day, when solar output is at its peak, and how much demand has decreased over the past few years, highlighting the role rooftop solar plays in all these market dynamics.”

Dig into his data below.

This is a fun map to play around with until pub o’clock. (It must be soon, right? Right?)

The Earth Null School visualisation of global weather conditions, forecast by supercomputers and updated every three hours. The ocean surface current estimates are updated every five days, while the ocean surface temperature is updated daily.

The current mode linked to above shows temperature, but by clicking on ‘Earth’ in the bottom left-hand corner you can add other features and overlays.

Find out more about it here.

This looks like a good idea.

Meanwhile, the seven elephants at Dubbo’s Western Plain Zoo have headed to the zoo’s “pool” during the hottest part of the day.
“The boys particularly love the water. They get in the pools in their exhibit and try to dunk each other much like teenage boys would,” elephant keeper Joel Kerr told AAP.

Just after 3pm, Sydney Airport recorded a temperature of 42.8C – the hottest it’s been in November since 1982, when it reached 43.4C, but still somewhat shy of that record.

A duty forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology said that temperatures across much of Sydney had been holding steady at around 40-41C for the last 90 minutes.

Sydney Airport was the hottest place in the metropolitan area, and close to the hottest place in New South Wales, with Wilcannia in the far west of the state reaching 44.3C just before 4pm. White Cliffs hit 44.1C at 3.08pm.

The duty forecaster said it was hard to know whether the Observatory Hill reading would exceed the November record of 41.8C, taken in 1982; it currently shows 40.6C. “It’s a matter of waiting and seeing.”

He said the Sydney area would begin to cool with a southerly change, forecast for later this evening. “That will be bringing quite a strong southerly wind and there will be quite a drop in temperature with that.”

It was expected to hit Sydney around 8pm or 9pm.

“It will reach the southern suburbs first ... Places like Cronulla will get the change first and places like Richmond will have to wait a little bit longer.”

Wind warnings had been issued just after 4pm for several parts of New South Wales.

“Schoolies” are celebrating the end of high school and the start of life on the Gold Coast/Sunshine Coast/Byron Bay today.

The Emergency Medicine Foundation, a peak body representing emergency room doctors, sees what could be coming with this mix of sudden heat, youthful exuberance and perhaps even alcohol and has issued some advice with them in mind.

Obviously this could apply equally to many of us come knock off time.

Equally obviously, the schoolies are busy partying (responsibly), so let me paraphrase it for them:

  • If it feels good, don’t do too much of it

In more detail:

  • Don’t drink too much
  • Drink water and alcohol in a 50:50 ratio
  • Stay in the shade
  • Wear sunscreen because sunburn dehydrates you
  • Take breaks from dancing even if you don’t feel hot

Alan Evans and I went to check on the eggs.

The results were mixed. It hadn’t been devoured by a bin chicken – but it wasn’t fried, either.

The one on the grate hadn’t fared much better.

Our accomplice at the Malibu sandwich shop, who’d kindly supplied us with the egg, seemed disappointed with the outcome, but asked us what we’d been hoping for – a perfectly reasonable question, that threw us nonetheless.

Without a hat or sunglasses, I fared fewer than ten minutes in the heat.

My colleague Monica Tan knew better.

“This is a secret that’s been kept for a very, very, very long time, by around 4.3 billion people,” she says. “You’ll never see an Asian person walking around on the street on a summer day without an umbrella.”

In the comments, Beekeeper49 makes an important point:

Let’s raise a toast to our volunteer firies. I am not surprised that we allegedly have more in NSW than elsewhere in the world.

We should cherish our egalitarian society which produces so many volunteers, who are vital to our safety and welfare. Even blood is donated, not sold here in Australia

Some pollies think that money makes the world go round, but they forget the contributions of our volunteers.

Meanwhile, Guardian Australia reader BenMacdui has taken a train to the city and bought a diet Coke and some Jammie Dodgers.

“In the next five to six years we will see this space come into its own,” then Brisbane lord mayor Campbell Newman said in 2009.

Well, it’s been six years since Brisbane’s longtime town square – King George square – had its grassy verges paved over with hot, hard, reflective stone – and the space is still making a hefty contribution to the so-called “urban heat island effect” here in the state capital.

Not too pleasant, even with the Leopard trees growing up and giving a little shade to the public seating left over after they gave over a chunk of the town square to a brasserie.

On the upside, local consumers need worry little about being interrupted by political protesters who used to haunt the old grassy town square, which also had some nice big fountains. Who wants to protest when it’s hot anyway, right? Everyone remembers how the Rohingyans fared during the G20 weekend last year.

A candidate for Campbell Newman’s most enduring legacy.

State of play: 3pm, AEDT

Sydney 40.7C

Canberra 35.1C

Darwin 32.2C

Brisbane 30.1C

Perth 24.9C

Hobart 20.5C

Adelaide 20.5

Melbourne 16.8C

Sydney’s at the top of the table – and so close to the forecast 41C!

At 2.17pm, my colleague Michael Safi’s Weather app was reporting a temperature of 43C – far higher than the Bureau of Meteorology reading for the central city. That’s because Apple’s Weather app runs on Yahoo data. Apps that use BoM readings, such as WillyWeather, are more accurate.

Watch this space...

The grass fire near Goulburn is continuing to burn out of control, closing the Hume Highway has been closed in both directions.

NSW Rural Fire Service crews are working to contain a five-hectare blaze on the highway’s median strip, reports AAP, as traffic is redirected through Goulburn.

The RFS has issued a watch and act warning for the region, urging residents to start taking action to protect themselves and their families.

A Watch and Act alert has also been issued for residents at Yenda, near Griffith in the state’s Riverina, as crews battle another grass fire.

Crews are keeping a close eye on a bushfire at Hornsby in Sydney’s north, which is close to Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park.

In Sydney’s southwest, large clouds of smoke billowed from a fire at an electrical substation before the blaze was contained soon after 2pm.

Meanwhile, police are investigating a fire in Blue Mountains bushland on Friday morning.

Emergency services extinguished the Hazelbrook blaze after 3.30am and forensics officers are now examining the scene.

We call this peer review.

Meanwhile, I’m eating an ice block in the office.

It’s currently 40.7C at Sydney’s Observatory Hill.

A recap: today’s high is forecast 41C. The hottest-ever temperature on record for Sydney in November is 41.8C, on 25 November 1982. The hottest-ever temperature on record for Sydney, in any month, is 45.8C.

Will today be one for the record books?

The slight possibility that it might has what’s kept this live blog ticking over for the past 6.5 hours. (Six and a half.)

You can't fry an egg on the pavement (in Surry Hills, Sydney)

We tried, we fried, we failed.

Thanks to the team from Malibu sandwich shop in Surry Hills for the egg, the use of their pavement, the expert cracking – and the loan of their fridge (to cool down the phones).

Updated

This is how to do it.

Guardian Australia editor Emily Wilson on the egg attempt: “something is happening”.

I’ve just been advised that the Periscope feed of the egg attempt has failed because Alan Evans’ phone can’t handle the heat.

Who could have predicted that result!

And it’s not just “an Android thing”, with Michael Safi’s iPhone down too.

Updated

At the risk of disappointing readers who are eagerly awaiting the live broadcast of Guardian Australia’s footpath v egg showdown, I am calling it early and predicting failure.

Apparently you need a minimum temperature of 55C to fry an egg, which seems achievable at current temperatures in Sydney, but it also depends on the surface. Concete isn’t an ideal frying medium, which is maybe why there are not many concrete frying pans.

We’re not the first to try this either – the city of Oatman in Arizona hosts a Solar Egg Frying competition on 4 July each year with hundreds of competitors trying to fry eggs with the help of aluminium foil and various reflectors, all with mixed success.

I’m tipping that you might see some congealing, but nothing that resembles the type of fried egg that we all know and love.

Hmm...

My colleague Alan Evans is Periscoping the egg attempt.

Updated

Observatory Hill in Sydney hits 39.5C

It’s happening.

With the help of our favourite local sandwich shop, we’re about to attempt to cook an egg on the pavement. (We will not be eating it.) According to a reputable-seeming website I just found (“fun science facts from the Library of Congress!”), an egg needs a temperature of 70C to become firm. Pavement of any kind is a poor conductor of heat – we might do better on the hood of a car.

In any case, we will be covering the experiment live on Periscope – link to follow.

Sydney is hot, but other parts of Australia are hotter. Australia is hot, but it’s not the hottest.

So where is?

The answer is more complicated than you might think.

According to Dr Ian Sample, our superb UK-based science editor, for nearly a century the city of El Azizia in northern Libya held the official title for being the hottest place on Earth ever recorded. The highest temp was believed to be 58C.

But then it turned out that someone was misreading the thermometer. Ouch. The hotness crown passed to Death Valley in California, with a top recorded temp of 56.7C in 1913.

That’s not the end of it though. It also depends how you measure the temperature.

This piece (although I’m not familiar with the publication) suggests that if you use satellite data instead of thermometers at weather stations, the hottest place on Earth is the Lut Desert in Iran – with a top recorded temperature of 70.7C.

So let’s not go there then!

State of play: 2pm, AEDT

Canberra 35.2C (“becoming windy. Sunny”)

Darwin 32.9C (“possible afternoon storm”)

Sydney 30.8C (“very hot. Late gusty change”)

Brisbane 30.1C (“hot and sunny”)

Perth 22.8C (“sunny”)

Hobart 21.5C (“afternoon shower or two”)

Adelaide 19.6C (“partly cloudy”)

Melbourne 17.7C (“few showers”

All temperatures taken from the Bureau of Meteorology’s website.

Perhaps one reflection of the heat here in Brisbane is the fact that former national drag racing champion Brett Stevens has elected to wear thongs with his dress shirt and jeans while sitting in the dock at his supreme court sentencing on trafficking today.

My colleague Susan McDonald has pointed out that while the official temperature for Sydney, taken at Observatory Hill, is 30.9C at 1.45pm, 16 of the 33 stations in the area have already recorded more than 38C.

The New South Wales Rural Fire Service – the world’s largest, interestingly, with 74,000 members serving 95% of the state – has recorded temperatures above 40C, as shown in this gif.

It’s fighting a bush fire at Simmos Beach, Macquarie Fields, though there is no threat to property.

Meanwhile, both the rural fire service and Fire and Rescue NSW are attending a grass fire that’s closed the Hume Highway in both directions. Though diversions through Goulburn are in place, motorists are advised to avoid the area.

Proponents of one lifestyle choice in Sydney have found today’s warmer temperatures validating.

Members of Sydney’s nudist community, tweeting at the handle @SydneyNudist (reasonably NSFW, as you might expect), have used the heatwave as an opportunity to promote its seven clubs in the area – and even an after-work skinny dip. “In this heat its not so silly now”.

Updated

Adam Brereton, ladies and gentlemen – first in with that papal take on #hotSydney.

So I’ve been outside and have experienced first-hand this much-blogged-about weather. I can confirm that it is, indeed, hot – 30.6C right now in fact.

Meanwhile, I received this supportive Snapchat from a friend back in New Zealand.

I’m kicking myself that we didn’t think of ‘Fryday’ first.

Updated

And that concludes my brief time with you as the Guardian’s heatblogger. I’m handing back over to Elle now, but here’s a brief quote to ponder from Pope Francis’s environmental encyclical, Laudato Si:

There is a nobility in the duty to care for creation through little daily actions, and it is wonderful how education can bring about real changes in lifestyle. ... We must not think that these efforts are not going to change the world. They benefit society, often unbeknown to us, for they call forth a goodness which, albeit unseen, inevitably tends to spread. Furthermore, such actions can restore our sense of self-esteem; they can enable us to live more fully and to feel that life on earth is worthwhile.

Stay cool out there blogfans, it’s a scorcher!

Friend of the Guardian and amateur meteorologist Jonathan Green checks in from the southern capital:

As has been noted by our readers, this isn’t the first time it’s been hot in Australia. From the Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal’s editon of 2 December 1899 comes this scintillating report:

THE HEAT WAVE
BIRDS DROP DEAD

Intense heat, with hot winds prevailed yesterday all over the colony.

At St Mary’s many of the native birds dropped dead from the trees.

A clipping from an 1882 Sydney newspaper

Another colonial report on the heatwaves of the late 19th century can be read here:

The hospitals are all full of patients, suffering either from fever or sun-stroke. To farmers and graziers the continued heat is proving very serious, the feed being withered up, tanks dry, and horses, sheep, and cattle dying by hundreds, and many settlers’ homes have been destroyed by the bush fires. Never in the history of New South Wales has such a continuance of fierce heat been known.

There’s more on the heatwave of 1896 over at the Conversation.

Updated

G’day heatfans, Adam Brereton here with you on the blog for a little bit while Elle goes to get some lunch.

On that topic, what should you cook on a filthy-hot day like today? Here’s a few recipes from the Guardian’s resident foodie and superchef, Yotam Ottolenghi.

These ones are meant for picnics, but it’s hot enough that you could get away with eating them indoors:

Cold summer soup seems a bit off to me. But who am I to judge? If you’re into that kind of thing Yotam has you covered:

And for something a bit different, here’s an Iraqi recipe for Sabih – eggplants and hardboiled egg.

State of play: 1pm, AEDT

Canberra 34.8C

Darwin 32.1C

Sydney 31.2C

Brisbane 30.1C

Perth 21.6C

Hobart 21.1C

Adelaide 19.9C

Melbourne 18.1C

As part of its ‘Sustainable Sydney 2030’ program, the City of Sydney is trialling a lighter-coloured pavement in Myrtle Street, between Abercrombie and Smithers streets in Chippendale, as part of an investigation into ways of reducing temperatures in urban areas.

Lighter-coloured surfaces do not generally absorb as much light, or retain as much heat as dark surfaces and therefore have the potential to reduce temperatures, result in lower energy bills for surrounding buildings, and improve road strength.

(ICYMI, my colleague Paul Farrell has a contradictory take on the heat absorbing properties of different coloured surfaces, informed by Bedouins – but I’ll leave it to him to take that up with the City of Sydney.)

You can see how the project’s being monitored over at the City of Sydney’s website. The real-time results feature is quite interesting – right now, on Myrtle St, the air temperature is 37.55C, almost a full degree higher than that on Wells St, the other side of Redfern train station. (I said “quite” interesting.)

If our live blog’s feeling a little Sydney-centric, our correspondents in other parts of the country are tied up covering events like the prime minister’s press conference and the interception of a boat carrying suspected asylum seekers. You tell us whether the news desk has made the right call.

Meanwhile, we’re rapidly approaching the 1pm state of play, and Guardian Australia’s news editor Mike Ticher is debating aloud what food item it’s not too hot to eat!

TristanR has posted a good tip in the comments:

“If you don’t have an aircon, soak a towel in cold water, drape it over your torso or around your shoulders, point a portable fan directly at you. Repeat whenever towel becomes too hot.”

HardcorePrawn suggests using a singlet #heathacks

Meanwhile, my colleague Monica Tan has been inspired to tweet some temperature-related similes – evocative imagery indeed. What would you add?

AAP reports that there are fears for children, pets and the elderly in the New South Wales heatwave.

The state’s peak medical body has warned people to drink plenty of water and avoid strenuous tasks.

“Heatwaves like the one we’re seeing today can cause serious harm to people through heatstroke and dehydration,” AMA state president Saxon Smith said on Friday.

“It’s especially important for people with chronic health conditions to be careful during heatwaves.”

A late gusty change is expected to bring some relief after days of extreme heat, with a maximum of just 23C forecast on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the NSW Rural Fire Service is on high alert amid hot, dry and windy conditions.

Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said people can’t afford to be complacent as temperatures continue to climb.

Total fire bans are in place in the Riverina region, the Illawarra region, Shoalhaven and Southern Ranges.

Fitzsimmons said firefighters had the upper hand on blazes so far on Friday but were ready to pounce, with volatile conditions expected all day.

“Today hopefully we get through that without any dangerous or destructive fires but today should be a wake up call for everybody, don’t be complacent,” Fitzsimmons told ABC TV.

“Have a conversation with your family, have a plan, prepare your home, prepare your loved ones and most importantly, know what it is you’re going to do in the event you’re threatened by fire.”

Updated

State of play: noon, AEDT

Canberra 33.5C

Darwin 31.8C

Sydney 31.4C

Darwin 30.2C

Brisbane 30.1C

Hobart 20.8C

Adelaide 20.5C

Perth 19.8C

Melbourne 18.6C

Sydney’s fewer than 10 degrees shy of reaching today’s forecast high of 41C. As a few commenters have pointed out, 41C is nothing compared to other parts of Australia, but it’s closing in on record temperatures for the city at this time of year.

The hottest-ever temperature on record for this month in Sydney was 41.8C, on 25 November 1982. It’s not beyond the bounds of the imagination that we might exceed that today.

The hottest-ever temperature on record of any month for the same location – Sydney Observatory Hill – was 45.8C, on 18 January 2013.

The heatwave conditions are caused by the combination of an approaching front and a slow-moving high pressure system over the Tasman Sea, which is drawing dry and increasingly hot air from central Australia into New South Wales.

“It’s a classic scenario of very hot and dry westerly winds with no sea breeze, followed by a blustery southerly change in the evening bringing relief,” said Michael Logan, NSW severe weather manager at the Bureau of Meteorology.

Contrary to the suggestions of my colleague Elle Hunt, who is managing our weather live blog today, dark colours are not always a bad choice in hot weather.

The prime minister has made not only a bold fashion choice in his T-shirt selection, but he is also taking a leaf out of the Bedouin’s book of How to Deal With Hot Weather.

Previous research has actually demonstrated that weather dark robes may, in some circumstances, repel the scorching desert sun. The report said: “The amount of heat gained by a Bedouin exposed to the hot desert is the same whether he wears a black or a white robe. The additional heat absorbed by the black robe was lost before it reached the skin.”

The fact that bedouins wore their robes loosely was also a factor in this coolant process, so Turnbull’s tight little muscle shirt may not have quite the same effect.

You can read more about Bedouins here.

Meanwhile, I am currently outside the office and on my way to board a plane to Singapore. I can confirm that it remains hot.

In fact, it is probably hotter than Singapore is at the moment so I probably should have just stayed here.

My train to the airport is only slightly delayed, but it’s entirely possible these delays will escalate throughout the day. Sydney trains find it notoriously difficult to cope with hot weather, and tracks have a tendency to bend slightly on occasion.

Enjoy the heat folks.

Comments – accidentally turned off for the first hour of this blog – are now on.

Relatedly, if you’d like to read some “real news”, here’s a link to the front page of Guardian Australia, which has it in spades.

Remember, we’re hanging out for contributions on the weather from all over Australia – chip in to our GuardianWitness assignment, tweet at me, or comment below.

Looks like Taronga Zoo’s chimpanzees were suitably enriched by their icy treats this morning.

One-year-old Chimpanzee Liwali plays with ice blocks at Taronga Zoo.
One-year-old Chimpanzee Liwali plays with ice blocks at Taronga Zoo. Photograph: Rick Rycroft/AP
Two-year-old Chimpanzee Fumo sucks on an ice block at Taronga Zoo.
Two-year-old Chimpanzee Fumo sucks on an ice block at Taronga Zoo. Photograph: Rick Rycroft/AP

Weather being the go-to topic for small talk on any platform, Twitter is obviously abuzz with takes on the temperature, including the thorny question of shorts in the workplace, and its effects on the sale of mayonnaise.

This helpful reminder comes care of “@SydneyWaterNews”.

Speaking of the NT News, here’s the Prime Minister, looking fondly at today’s edition, which depicts him as Crocodile Dundee.

The snapshot was uploaded to Instagram by Malcolm Turnbull’s photographer Sahlan Hayes at about 11am, when the temperature in Darwin had just surpassed 30C. Hence the T-shirt – though black, definitely the coolest possible colour of T-shirt, is not the wisest choice when it comes to heat absorption.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull looks lovingly at the Northern Territory News.

And here’s that front page.

(I’ve passed on that “sex and bongs in front of kids” lead to the Guardian Australia news desk.)

Post-script: apparently my patronising explanation of “gone troppo” in a previous post has marked me out as an outsider. Apologies – as an Englishwoman/New Zealander, it was not my intention to teach true-blue Aussie legends how to suck eggs (or shoot cockroaches).

Updated

Asia Pacific international editor Dave Munk has flouted official advice to file this report from outside.

With the obvious disclaimer that, if you go outside in Sydney, you’re now doing so in defiance of NSW Health’s official advice – if you head out to Bondi Beach this afternoon, you’ll see large-scale sculptures of DC Comic superheroes by New York artist Nathan Sawaya in the largest exhibition of its kind.

Batman and Robin at Bondi Beach, as part of Nathan Sawaya’s Art of the Brick – DC Comics lego exhibition in Sydney.
Batman and Robin at Bondi Beach, as part of Nathan Sawaya’s Art of the Brick – DC Comics lego exhibition in Sydney. Photograph: Daniel Boud/MAAS

State of play: 11am AEDT

Darwin 30.2C

Sydney 31.7C

Canberra 31.2C

Darwin 30.2C

Brisbane 29.8C

Adelaide 19.8C

Hobart 18.5C

Melbourne 18C

Perth 17.3C

This assessment care of Asia Pacific international news editor Dave Munk.

Coming up – in the early afternoon, when the temperature in Sydney is expected to peak, Guardian Australia editor Emily Wilson is going to attempt to cook an egg on the pavement outside our office in Surry Hills, which sounds like something she will almost certainly be fined for if she is spotted by local authorities.

Updated

It is going to be 29C in Perth today. At the moment, 7.40am, it’s 16.9C. My sister Piper is visiting from Port Hedland, 1,500km north, and enjoying the novelty of wearing long pants. It was 41C in Port Hedland yesterday, a very sweaty situation in high-visibility cotton drill, and will get to 42C today. On Sunday it climbed above 45C. That’s not a heatwave, it’s just the Pilbara.

“You stop checking after a while because it’s always going to be the same: hot,” Piper said, before describing the wardrobe required to live in such environments (“I’ve got quite a nice selection of singlets and shorts”).

Hedland is about 200km from Marble Bar, the hottest place in Australia according to both its town sign and Bureau of Meteorology Records (it holds the record for most consecutive days above 45 degrees). It reached 33.1C by 7am WST and has been hovering around 42C all week.

Enjoying the Marble Bar weather this week, according to the local paper, was I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here winner (and former English cricket captain, but whatever) Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff, or, as the North West Telegraph called him, “the pale Brit”. The paper went on to say that he looked “a bit flushed in pictures”.

I wrote about Marble Bar and its sweary publican in January, when forecasters teased that it might reach 50C. So for Sydneysiders, who appear unused to warmer temperatures, I’ll pass on publican Thomas Fox’s advice:

Drink a lot of water. Stay out of the sun.

My correspondents on Twitter have let me know how the weather is where they are.

Balmoral, Sydney, from Patrick Avenell: “perfect crossword weather”.

Great advice from the Queensland authorities there, and echoed by their counterparts in New South Wales.

NSW Health has told people to avoid being outdoors if possible after about 11am, and to avoid physical activity as much as possible. That means, if you’re in NSW, you’ve got about six minutes left in which to run about with the green light from the public health department.

NSW Health has also advised people to avoid alcohol, hot and sugary drinks.

These are all tips we’re following in the Guardian Australia office. A few computers down from me, Comment is Free editor Adam Brereton has just advised a contributor on the phone to “stay hydrated”.

Years of being a total cheapskate - and raised in a family of cheapskates - has meant I’ve never lived in a house with an air-conditioner (which, incidentally, is better for the environment).

Here are my tips for staying cool when those sweltering 40+ degree days hit your city.

  1. During the day block out all light with heavy curtains and keep the windows closed
  2. During the cool evening open up the curtains and the windows to let any cool breeze in
  3. Hang about in your underwear or nude
  4. Eat watermelons
  5. Strictly cold showers
  6. Drink ice water
  7. Portable or ceiling fans work wonders
  8. If you have a multi-storey house stay in the lower levels until the evening cools
  9. No exercise or heavy exertion until after 9pm
  10. No blankets or sheets in bed
A five-star chef has carved a watermelon into an elaborate flower.
Extra for experts: take a leaf out of this five-star chef’s book and carve your watermelon into an elaborate flower before you eat it! Photograph: Barbara Walton/EPA

It’s a stinker, friends, and right across the country Australians are sweating into bus seats, walking in shadows, and committing the grave sin of mixing ice and coffee.

So how does the sun’s latest attempt to render this planet unliveable compare to past efforts?

Australian temperature records

This cold-brew coffee ice block was spotted on Instagram by Darwin correspondent Helen Davidson. “IS THIS NOT THE GREATEST FOOD IDEA EVER,” she asked (caps hers).

Screenshot of James Hutchinson’s instagram about frozen cold drip coffee

Response to the icy treat has been varied, as is par for the course on social media.

“This is the pinnacle of mankinds achievements. When people talk about standing on the shoulders of generations of thinkers and innovators, this is what they mean,” said one Instagram user.

“Literally the most obnoxious hipster thing @jhutchinson has ever done,” said another.

Updated

Melbourne’s day began with a series of storms in the small hours, caught on camera below.

The Bureau of Meteorology said the storm started around Geelong at about 12.30am before making its way to the city between 1am and 2am. Lightning strike may have also set a large pile of rubbish on fire in Melbourne’s north. Firefighters were called to the scene, behind a factory in Somerton, just after 2.30am.

Right now in Melbourne, it’s 18.1C – nearing its forecast high of 22C. A few showers are forecast for later in the day. Scintillating stuff.

I asked my colleague Brigid Delaney, in Melbourne to see family, how the weather was over Gchat.

Brigid: hot and dry
quite interesting
overcast

Elle: how does it feel
use a simile

Brigid: like a coke can that has nothing in it and someone’s stepped on it
also the air is so dry that my contact lenses are coming out
that is not a simile

Shots of Bronte Beach, Sydney, taken this morning – the only place to be outside of an air-conditioned office today.

People enjoying the morning conditions at Bronte Beach in Sydney this morning.
People enjoying the morning conditions at Bronte Beach in Sydney this morning. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP
People are seen enjoying the morning conditions at Bronte Beach as temperatures are set to soar, in Sydney, Friday, Nov. 20, 2015.
The Bureau of Meteorology has forecast temperatures to hit 41 degrees across the greater Sydney metropolitan region today. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Guardian Australia’s Darwin correspondent, Helen Davidson, has filed this report from the Top End:

“Update: It barely got below 28 overnight in Darwin.

“My app told me it “felt like” (the only bit of the app worth looking at) 34.5-freaking-degrees at 8am today. The heatwave is coinciding with the Top End’s build-up season when people start going troppo in the humidity. If you need any evidence of that look to parliament or the pages of the NT News.”

“Going troppo”, from what I can ascertain, is a state of heat-induced madness to which the Northern Territory News, the Northern Territory’s pre-eminent tabloid, attributes spates of petty crime or poor judgement calls like shooting a cockroach with a rifle. (Though, it can also refer to starting a garden of exotic plants.)

Helen also has a question about which is the more accurate measure of humidity – percentage or dew point, which is of course a debate we all come down on one side or the other. Keep it clean in the comments, please.

“Can one of the readers please explain whether the humidity percentage or dew point is the real indicator of humidity? I hear different things. The best bit is definitely all the weather people on the radio saying next week is when it will really get warm.”

State of play: 10am AEDT

Brisbane 30.1C

Darwin 29.8C

Canberra 28.8C

Sydney 28C

Adelaide 19.2C

Melbourne 17.7C

Hobart 17.9C

Perth 15.5C

As you can see, Brisbane is rapidly nearing its forecast high of 33C as Sydney falls behind Darwin and Canberra in the power rankings.

Updated

Update: it is now 28C in Sydney.

AAP has suggested that Sydneysiders might care to follow the example of chimpanzees at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo, which have been provided with both “large, raspberry-flavoured icy treats filled with fruits and vegetables” and “ice blocks made from ice tea” for breakfast. This will help the chimps to stay cool and hydrated.

A picture of a chimpanzee eating a piece of cake she retrieved from the water
Taronga Zoo’s late chimpanzee Fifi, pictured in May 2007 – two months before she passed away at the age of 60 – and eating a piece of cake she retrieved from the water. We assume she would have enjoyed today’s icy treats. Photograph: David Gray/REUTERS

“The chimps will be pretty excited to see the enrichment treats when they come out in the morning,” a spokeswoman from Taronga Zoo told AAP. “Especially the three infant chimps, as they may not have seen enrichment like this before.”

Over the summer, the chimps will be spoiled with “more icy treats, cooling sprinklers and air-conditioned night dens”, says AAP.

My own night den is not air-conditioned.

One of the reasons for the unseasonally warm weather is the El Niño weather pattern in the Pacific, which is usually accompanied by below-average weather and increased daytime temperatures.

The 2015 El Niño, declared six months ago, is now one of the three strongest ever recorded – comparable to those in 1997-8 and 1982-3, which both brought devastating droughts to eastern Australia.

The peak in sea surface temperatures is likely to occur before the end of 2015, before easing in the first three months of next year.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology’s most recent climate outlook overview, the strong El Niño has combined with “a decaying positive Indian Ocean Dipole” and very warm Indian Ocean temperatures to bring a drier-than-average September and October. (The Indian Ocean Dipole, abbreviated to “IOD” in weather circles, is “a coupled ocean and atmosphere phenomenon in the equatorial Indian Ocean that affects the climate of Australia”.)

The result will be warmer than average temperatures in December for Southern Australia, and parts of the west and north of the country. Overnight temperatures are likely to be warmer across most of the country, except the southeast.

The ironic reality of live-blogging in the digital age is that you’re often better placed to cover a news event (in this case, hot weather) from your desk than you are from the thick of it yourself. With me chained to my desk, my colleague Emma “Froggo” Froggatt kindly ventured into the heat to buy me a coffee.

On her return, she confirmed that it was “still hot” outside.

How hot, Froggo?

“Very hot.”

I’ve since looked up this lead on the Bureau of Meteorology website, and Froggo’s story checks out. At 9.24am AEDT, it is now 26.9C.

Folks: I’m prepared to say we’re about to hit 27C.

Updated

There are two million more pets than people in Australia, and they get hot too.

The RSPCA New South Wales has issued tips for pet owners to keep cool during the summer months. These include making sure shade and water is accessible at all times; clipping or trimming long-haired dogs to keep them cool; putting sunscreen on white, fair-skinned or pink-nosed pets’ noses and ears; and freezing pet food to make a delicious, dog-friendly ice block.

Dogs do not sweat like we do and as such tend to overheat very quickly; once their temperature rises above 40 degrees, it can be fatal. If you see a dog locked in a car and they are in distress, call your local police station or RSPCA.

World Animal Protection has launched a campaign to remind people to take into account their pets in case of disasters such as bushfires, citing statistics that 63% of Australian households have at least one pet, and that Australia has suffered 265 disasters over a 30-year period.

“Disasters can strike at any time, without warning, and include bushfires, severe storms, floods and extreme heatwaves – all a reality of living in Australia,” reads the press release. (True enough – but my experience thus far suggests not in the inner-west suburbs of Sydney.)

You can find out more about how to create a disaster plan for your pet here. Whether or not you have one of your own, this is a nice idea:

If you’re this woman, or know her...

...I want to hear from you.

Former ABC correspondent Simon Cullen has tweeted this heatmap from the Bureau of Meteorology. Cullen’s now based in London, which, at 10pm on a Thursday, is currently 9C – we assume he’s feeling homesick.

Meanwhile, responding to my Twitter plea for weather updates across Australia, Project U’s Nic Kelly has confirmed that it is currently a “#bithot” in Five Dock, New South Wales. Thanks Nic!

Updated

Hot, dry weather and moderate winds can be a lethal combination in many parts of Australia.

Firefighters have again worked through the night to battle bushfires in Western Australia’s south that have left four people dead, destroyed three homes, and killed about 15,000 livestock.

AAP reports that more than 200 firefighters and pastoralists are tackling the lightning-sparked blazes that are burning between Scaddan and Salmon Gums, some 100km north of Esperance, and in the Stockyard Creek and Mullet Lakes areas, about 25km east of the coastal town.

About 50 extra volunteers firefighters arrived on Thursday from areas including Perth and Albany to relieve crews.

The alert level for the fires has been downgraded from emergency to watch and act, and a forecast continuation of cool weather today bodes well, but conditions have been variable.

A bushfire burning out of control near Esperance, on Western Australia’s south coast. Police announced earlier this week that four people had been killed in the massive blaze.
A bushfire burning out of control near Esperance, on Western Australia’s south coast. Police announced earlier this week that four people had been killed in the massive blaze. Photograph: Michael Sainty/EPA

On Tuesday, extremely strong winds and hot temperatures made the fire unstoppable.

Trevor Tasker, who has been a firefighter for 35 years and helped direct drivers away from the inferno, said he’d never seen a blaze as devastating and fast-moving, with a front covering about 15km in 30 minutes.

“It came from nowhere,” he said.

It’s 8.45am AEDT, and here’s the current state of play of temperatures of cities across Australia, ordered from most hot to least hot – the power rankings, if you will.

Darwin 25.8C

Brisbane 25C

Sydney 24.7C

Canberra 22.6C

Adelaide 19.4C

Melbourne 17.7C

Hobart 16.4C

Perth 13.6C

That’s a difference of more than 11C. Like I said, it’s a big country.

I’ll be updating these temperatures from the Bureau of Meteorology’s website periodically throughout the day. I’m based in Sydney, and from the 15-odd minutes I’ve spent outside so far this morning (the walk from my house to the bus stop; the walk from another bus stop to the Guardian Australia office), I have no desire to venture out there again.

For those of you in other parts of the world who might be assuming that Australia is like this all the time, let us assure you – it’s not. Temperatures in excess of 40C in Sydney, in springtime, are uncharacteristically warm. The official start of summer is December 1 – more than a week away.

Updated

Weather: it’s happening, and we’re live-blogging it

Good morning, and welcome to Guardian Australia’s real-time coverage of the heatwave that’s leaving much of the country hot, dry, and at risk of fire.

The temperature in Sydney is expected to hit 41C today, while major cities in the rest of the country will reach highs of between 22C and 36C. (What can we say – it’s a big country.)

Fire warnings have been also issued for parts of Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, ACT and Victoria.

We’ll be covering the latest warnings and updates from the Bureau of Meteorology, as well as Australians’ experiences of the unseasonally warm weather the country over.

Feel free to contribute to our GuardianWitness assignment, or to tweet at me about how it’s looking in your area.

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