‘Catastrophic:’ Record-breaking heat bringing extreme conditions, catastrophic fire danger moves east

Record-breaking heat in Western Australia is moving eastwards, bringing extreme heatwave and catastrophic fire conditions to southeastern parts of the nation that are expected to linger through next week.

The Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe weather update on Thursday after Carnarvon, in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region, hit temperatures of 47.9C.

“That is a January record for that location,” meteorologist Christie Johnson said.

Conditions on the west coast are expected to cool from Friday but a trough is forecast to move inland, sending temperatures rising to the mid-to-high forties.

The heat will hit eastern parts of Western Australia before moving into South Australia and continue eastwards on Saturday, dragged by a cold front over the Southern Ocean.

“That’s going to give a lot of heat over South Australia, Victoria and NSW with 40C forecast for Melbourne and 42C for Adelaide,” Ms Johnson said.

“There’s a little bit of a reprieve for the south coast on Sunday, but the heat isn’t going anywhere.

“It’s going to linger over inland parts and also start to redevelop over southern parts of Western Australia.”

Ms Johnson said heat will rebuild over South Australia, NSW and western parts of Victoria with a top of 43C forecast for Adelaide and 47C in Mildura early to mid next week.“That would be a January record,” she said

“Wednesday is the hottest day for many locations.

“We could see some records falling, with all this heat we are expecting heatwave conditions.”