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About half of Australia will swelter under a heatwave in coming days, with prolonged hot nights and high humidity expected to create uncomfortable and dangerous conditions.
Perth and Brisbane are at the centre of the hot weather enveloping much of Western Australia and Queensland, with the Bureau of Meteorology warning of severe heatwave conditions with forecast maximum temperatures of more than 12C above average in Perth.
The forecast weather could be somewhat of a relief for the western capital, which experienced 43.6C in the metro area on Monday. About 420km up the Brand Highway, the coastal city of Geraldton equalled its hottest day on record when it hit 49.3C that afternoon.
Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist, Miriam Bradbury, said new temperature records were unlikely to be set around the country, but she said heatwaves were measured across three-day periods, not by momentary spikes.
“Heatwaves are less about how high those peak temperatures are going to get and more about how long the really hot conditions are going to last,” she said.
“You never say ‘never’ with the weather; it can always take you unawares. But, at this time, we’re not currently forecasting any records. It’s more the fact that it’s so persistently hot over such a number of days … with really hot nights as well.”
In Perth, the bureau forecasts maximum temperatures to remain between 37C and 39C to Friday, with minimums of 26C and 25C, compared with an average high of 31.4C and a low of 18.1C in January.
Brisbane is forecast to hit a maximum of 35C on Wednesday and 37C on Friday, with night-time temperatures as high as 24C expected until at least early next week.
Bradbury said the heat would persist in Queensland until it was swept away by a changed weather pattern, with a slow-moving trough lying across inland Queensland and a high pressure system sitting to the south of the country “pulling in” heat from central Australia and “wrapping it around and across Queensland”.
“These systems … they’re developing and then they’re sitting in place, which means that heat that they’re drawing in they’re holding over those areas for quite a few days in a row,” she said.
Drawing a line roughly from Mount Isa down to the Darling Downs, she said areas to the north and east of the state would also experience “really humid conditions coming in off the ocean”.
“Certainly, during the overnight period, humidity levels will be at least 70%, if not 80% or 90% or more,” she said. “Which, again, is not particularly unusual for this time of year, it’s more that it’s so persistent.”
Griffith University Prof Susan Harris Rimmer, whose research focuses on climate justice and heatwaves, said her main message for the public was that “heatwaves are deadly”.
Harris Rimmer said this was especially so for vulnerable people, because a heatwave could be as life threatening as a bushfire or a cyclone but was rarely taken as seriously by authorities, the media or the public.
“I’m talking about infants under one and people over 75,” she said, adding that people on certain medications, such as for mental health, people who have particular types of spinal injuries and pregnant women were all vulnerable in hot weather.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a warning in a heatwave for women who are pregnant. They are very vulnerable, both them and the baby.”
Harris Rimmer said people should check on vulnerable people and prepare “some old-fashioned strategies” in case of power outages, such as having wet towels and buckets of water handy.
She said outdoor workers, people working in hot kitchens and athletes were also at risk from more frequent heatwaves.
“The other people I really worry about are people who are unhoused, sleeping in their cars or in tents, and there’s a lot of them around Australia,” she said.
Harris Rimmer lamented the lack of heat strategies adopted by authorities and communities, including places of refuge for those without air conditioning.
“We really have to rethink our summers and start appreciating the reality,” she said.
“And I’m not talking about the climate we’re going to get, I’m talking about the climate that we have. I think it’s time for people to start understanding the new normal when it comes to summer.”
