A heat wave sweeping Australia yesterday engulfed the densely populated southeast, boosting temperature records, spurring fire bans and arousing concern about the health of contestants in this month’s Australian Open tennis tournament.
A week after Australia’s hottest town, in its northwest, recorded its hottest day, sweltering temperatures arrived on the other side of the continent, pushing the southeastern city of Melbourne to a near-record 42°C.
Regions to the north were expected to be hotter and windy, prompting a fire ban across the second most populous state of Victoria.
Nine years earlier, Australia’s deadliest bushfires killed 180 people near cities forecast to experience temperatures of 46°C yesterday.
“The conditions are there that if a fire was to start, it could be quite difficult to contain,” Australian Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Tom Delamotte said.
Forecasters expected temperatures to cool later, but the heat was likely to return soon after, Delamotte added, days ahead of the Jan. 14 start of the Australian Open in Melbourne.
Tennis Australia, the sport’s governing body, says it has upgraded temperature testing at the Melbourne Park sports center and introduced a 10-minute break for the men’s singles.
It has also adopted a five-step “heat stress scale” that lets referees suspend play under extreme conditions.
In Hobart, capital of the nearby island state of Tasmania, which is usually the nation’s coolest, the mercury rose as high as 40°C, two degrees from a January record.
Pictures on social media showed a striking dark-orange sky over Hobart as a bushfire swept the wilderness nearby.
Campers were evacuated from the affected area, Australian Broadcasting Corp said, though no injuries were reported.
The city council of Shepparton, north of Melbourne, sent life guards to ask holidaymakers to avoid the direct sun at the city pool during record temperatures of 45°C.
“Everyone knows it’s hot, but sometimes we forget the obvious things,” Shepparton Mayor Kim O’Keeffe said.
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