15 January 2013

"Skull-boiling" temperatures in Australia

"The past four months have been the hottest ever recorded on the continent, with a new countrywide high temperature on January 7 busting the mercury bulb at 104.6 Fahrenheit...

This January, much of the country has been locked into temperatures exceeding 113 degrees thanks to an atmospheric ridge that delayed the rainy season for several weeks. Sydney hit 114 degrees last Friday, establishing a new high for the city in 150 years of record keeping; other historic firsts include 110.7 degrees in Wellington, 111.4 in Adelaide and at the charmingly named gas town of Moomba (you know, right between Innamincka and Strzelecki), a near-impossible-to-believe reading of 121.3 degrees."
For those who are Celsius-challenged, normal human body temperature (98.6F) is the orange on the heat scale.  More details at The Atlantic Cities.

Meanwhile in Minnesota...

8 comments:

  1. Although the temperature didn't reach the predicted temperatures, the weather forecast where they had to start adding new colours for the predicted record highs were also interesting http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/01/09/australia-too-hot-to-pump-gas-needs-new-colors/

    Also, this is a vital tool when planning a road trip in NSW
    http://mapvisage.appspot.com/static/firemap.html

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  2. Er, Wellington is not in Australia. But Melbourne's forecast is for 111.2 today and Adelaide will be 114.8. 16 January 2014

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    1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington,_South_Australia

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    2. Oh, THAT Wellington! Oops!
      Today 17 Jan Melbourne will endure another day of 111.2 (yesterday was 111). Everything in my garden is burned!

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  3. December was cooler than average in my part of Australia (Adelaide), but it was saving it up for January. Today's maximum (per forecast) is 46, and comes near the end of I've-lost-count-how-many consecutive days in the 40s. Definitely some records being broken, there. (46 Celsius is 114.8 Farenheit.)

    Indoors right now it's 26, and that's with the air conditioner set to 22 with fans on maximum.

    My preferred weather forecast site is http://www.worldweather.org/ and my preferred temperature converter is the calculator that comes with Windows.

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  4. Jen in sunny MelbourneJanuary 16, 2014 at 4:46 AM

    While there may be a place called Moomba, most Australians (especially those who live in Melbourne) know the name as the annual festival whose name, legend has it, means, "let's get together and have fun!" It's held every March on the labour day weekend.

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  5. That thermal cartography is dated 2013.

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    1. I hadn't noticed, that. Tx, WilliamRocket. The Atlantic Cities article was from 2013 as well.

      Fixed (by moving the post back to January of 2013 !!).

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