Sydney has sweltered through its hottest November night since records began more than 160 years ago, as temperatures climbed to 40C in the city for a second consecutive day.
The mercury dropped to just 25.3C at 1.09am on Sunday at Sydney’s Observatory Hill and rose above 30C shortly after 4.30am. The previous record for the warmest November minimum temperature was set in 1967 at 24.8C.
The extreme heat was also posing a fire danger across New South Wales, with a watch and act alert issued for a bushfire in Northmead in Sydney’s west shortly after 1pm on Sunday. There were 45 bush and grass fires burning across the state at that time.
NSW Rural Fire Service spokesman Greg Allan said that the Whitehaven Road fire in Northmead was “burning to the south-west of properties that are in the vicinity of where this fire is burning”.
The service later confirmed one property was damaged by fire.
The overnight temperature record was set after parts of Sydney – including the CBD – broke the 40C barrier on Saturday while swathes of western NSW, South Australia and northern Victoria baked through even higher temperatures approaching 45C.
Overnight November minimum records also fell in Newcastle, western NSW’s Bourke and Cobar, as well as Ulladulla on the state’s south coast.
At Bankstown airport in western Sydney, the lowest temperature recorded overnight was 27.1C, breaking a 53-year-old record for the warmest minimum temperature recorded during any night of the year. A 36-year-old annual minimum record for Camden also fell.
Parts of Sydney reached 40C again on Sunday. Temperatures were forecast to ease in the afternoon when a gusty southerly was expected to break the north-westerly winds that have been dragging hot air masses up through NSW since Saturday.
Main Photo: People gather on the shore during heatwave conditions at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. EPA-EFE/JOEL CARRETT
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