Victoria: Heatwave November 13th-20th 2009

Claim the 40 mate.. in the name of the frog gnome. he deserves it as he saw it all happen first hand.

Might be a few site records fallen today in Vic - will know tomorrow - but suspect a whole bundle have fallen in NSW. Canberra has equaled its warmed warmest temperature on record. Some really high numbers in elevated areas - including ~23C at Thredbo (just shy of a record), and a bundle of 44 to 46C temperatures across the inland north and east. Will be touch and go as to whether the NSW record has been bettered (again).

Hate to think how hot the night will be up that way.

Heat now, pretty much over for Vic until the next record breaking heatwave which must be just around the corner (if the last year is a guide)

BTW a postscript to this event.

My back of the envelop calculations suggest we need to average nearly 5C below average for the remainder of the month not to have the hottest November on record for Victoria. Given that next week looks like being warmer than average we are on track for - by a huge margin - the warmest November and quite possibly the largest positive temperature anomaly for any month in records for Victoria.

Yet another example of how rapidly our climate is changing....

Dont think there is too much doubt DJ...lets hope we also get one of the wettest as i suggested at the start of the sequence...all models indicate we could get average rainfall by the end of the month, which given the cold air to the south and the extremely hot air over us, is understandable...

It got to to 37 and a bit at work near moorabbin but only 31 here. Dust storm with the change and some drizzle. Nice to walk in.

BTW have heard some reports of property damage in the northeast suburbs on the wind change. Sounds like there could have been some local down burst with the rapidly developing storms on the change. Nothing to report from Ferny Creek - just a few twigs and leaves down and lots of brown mud everywhere.

0.7mm of rain here and that's about all there is to report. Fell just short of 34C here today so about the same as yesterday. No damage done from ths heat wave in the end, quite remarkably. If anything it has actually accelerated growth further, no plants in the garden showing any signs of distress and the bush seems alright as well. Of course the next record breaking heatwave will be a different story. I suspect January we can expect this to occur and a chance at breaking the all time record again. (Sorry for being so cynical but it is getting completely beyond a joke).

Shocking in Melbourne today, cloud or no cloud 38C at 1pm is not pleasant and particularly in November. Didn't notice a great deal of dust in North Melbourne with the change, only on the horizon I noticed it was very brown looking. There were squalls with the wind change and about 30 seconds of heavy rain. Didn't hear any thunder.