Birdsville notches up another temperature record as Australia faces more heat before New Year’s Eve
Birdsville notches up another temperature record as Australia faces more heat before New Year’s Eve
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The town hit 47.2C by mid afternoon, but locals are already well-versed in the art of staying cool. It might have been the hottest place in the country on Boxing Day, but when the tiny outback town of Birdsville hit 47.2C by mid afternoon, locals were already well-versed in the art of staying cool.
Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist, Dean Narramore, said Birdsville was “looking like it’s going to be the hottest in the country,” even though places across the Northern Territory, Western Australia, South Australia and New South Wales had reached the mid 40s.
Birdsville, in outback Queensland bordering both SA and the NT, recorded a maximum of 47.2C at 3:53pm, making it the hottest place in Australia on Thursday, and the hottest temperature for December this year, nudging above the 47.1C recorded in Walpeup, in Victoria’s north-west last Monday.
Yet it wasn’t even the highest temperature locals had experienced this year. On 25 January, the Bureau’s temperature gauge located at the local police station, recorded 49.4C, just 0.1C shy of the town’s – and the state’s – all-time record of 49.5C in 1972.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email. Stephan Pursell, senior constable in charge at the Birdsville police station, said temperatures of 45-plus were not unusual for this time of year and locals were “pretty well versed” at dealing with the heat, with most staying indoors.
