Green | January 01, 2013 | 11 comments

Heat Wave Record broken in Western Australia

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LivingPong
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/15740150/heatwave-record-broken/

The West Australian December 31, 2012

Perth has broken its record for the longest December heatwave in 70 years after it reached a sweltering 39C before midday.

The past seven consecutive days, including today, has seen maximums above 37C which was last seen in December 1942.

Beginning Christmas Day - Perth's fifth hottest on record at 39.6C - the mercury climbed to 40.5C on Saturday before falling to 37.5C yesterday, short of the forecast 40C.

Fortunately, the temperature is set to cool in the New Year with tomorrow expected to reach 34C and Wednesday jumping down to 27C.
People have packed out beaches all over the Metropolitan area

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Further south where I live it reached 42C yesterday (December 31) and 37C today (it's still 34C at 4.00pm) even though we have had a short sprinkle of rain.
  1. groups:
    Green,   Climate Extremes
  2. tags:
    Australia,  Hot Weather
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11 comments // Heat Wave Record broken in Western Australia

  • coolplanet
    • 0
      coolplanet  

    • "It's quite unusual to see 40 degrees forecast for four days in a row."

      Googling this story I was frustrated to find absolutely no reference to climate change or the meteorological conditions causing this record heat wave.
      Is it a 'blocking high' pressure system like we've been increasingly seeing in the U.S. (and what pushed hurricane Sandy into the northeast)?

      I also noticed that these extreme heatwaves have been increasing in Australia over the past few years.

    • 5 months ago
  • LivingPong
    • 0
      LivingPong  
    • Image
    • coolplanet:

      Yeah the general news coverage is shit. Even our local TV station said something like "blah, blah blah, record heat wave and recent freak rain storms this summer have nothing to do with Global Warming, these events have been caused by warmer than normal ocean temperatures off the Western Australian coast which the Department of Meteorology has been monitoring for some time."

      The Department of Meteorology and the CSIRO have however been releasing regular media releases about the effects of Global Warming and have made particular mention of the warming ocean conditions off the Western Australian coast. In fact if media outlets were to actually look at these media releases, one of the central discussion points about Western Australia and Global Warming is the large column of warm water that now extends all the way down through the Lewin Current, from the far North of Western Australia, continuing south along the entire state and extending at times as far as the Great Australian Bite.

      A couple years ago (2010) when the water temperature first increased by at least 5C, Whale Sharks were sitting off Albany as they fled the hot water for many hundreds of miles from Ningaloo. That's a bloody long way, probably well over a thousand kilometres, maybe nearing two thousand (I'd have to look at a map to work it out). As much as 80% of many coral reefs died along the Western Australian coast due to temperatures above 26C in 2010.

      A similar high pressure system has extended as a large trough down the Western Australian coast for at least the last week. There has been no let up in the hot temperature which has only dropped to around 34C today. Days of 40C have been common with the nights in the high twenties.

    • 4 months ago
  • Catmommy
  • JanforGore
  • Progresshiv
  • LivingPong
    • +2
      LivingPong  
    • Progresshiv:

      The South West corner unfortunately is one of the fastest drying areas on the planet. It's this little stuffed patch on all the weather maps with always the wrong colour. Our rainfall went from so much rain in winter you got stuck in your house for months, to "where's the bloody rain"?

      Our rivers used to have an annual boat race down them for 100km, now you can't go more than a couple hundred meters in a boat. Cops won't even need to look for dope crops soon, farmers for fruit. People are moving their vineyards down to Tasmania over east, so they're probably stuffed too.

      Backpackers really won't need a jumper or pants when they come over, usually they complain because they don't realise is does get cold here. I might piss off to England next month perhaps to enjoy some snow and shit.

    • 5 months ago
  • JanforGore
  • LivingPong
    • 0
      LivingPong  
    • JanforGore:

      We have been seeing fish that live about 1000km North of us at local spots on the coast for quite a number of years. I'd ring up fisheries and other departments and they'd say I must be mistaken because those fish (or sharks) don't live that far South. I'd tell them I knew that but they were bloody swimming around in front of me and I used to buy every bloody fishing almanac for years. I was the only tourist guide in the entire southern portion of the state for about a decade and those stupid knobs from government departments used to come and see me if they wanted to find a bird, a fish, a plant or any kind of living thing, or for that matter a bloody road.

      Actually I found it incredibly funny that some guy in an office 300km away in the city was telling me anything about what a fish looked like when I was swimming around in the ocean with my snorkelling gear. But that's what it's like. Some dude makes a decision about cutting down a forest he's never ever seen, no scientific survey has taken place and they couldn't even find it on a map.

      They did tell me they were going to cut down all the forest though, and dry up all the ground water, and then dig up all the minerals. Well it's pretty bloody dry so I guess those bloody bauxite mines are probably getting ready to be started, and probably some coal mines too. I'm just wondering what they are going to do without any water. Water seems to be important for their mineral processing shenanigans and probably for drinking, but then I'm just some clueless Ned Kelly look-alike from Tiger Snake gully.

    • 4 months ago
  • LivingPong
    • +4
      LivingPong  
    • Image

    • - Very unimpressed Hot Dog

      It hit 40C both Saturday and Sunday here also which was unexpected as we are usually at least a few degrees cooler than Perth.

      The nights are murder.

    • 5 months ago
  • LivingPong
  • LivingPong
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