New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory are set to bake under heatwave conditions today. The weather bureau is warning parts of Western Sydney are heading for a scorching 42 degrees.
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00:00Temperatures peaking at over 40 degrees in several parts of Western Sydney, from the
00:07far west to the northwest and even the southwest at Campbelltown too.
00:11So these are serious temperatures and with that come serious warnings, particularly from
00:16the Bureau of Meteorology.
00:17The advice to people is to find shade where possible.
00:20If you're staying indoors, use curtains and blinds to limit the amount of direct sunlight
00:25coming into a home, as well as accessing cooling.
00:28Whether that be fans or air conditioning.
00:30Now if you don't have access to that, it's always worth trying to get to places that
00:33can keep you cool.
00:34That could be swimming and water holes, but also even shopping centres and libraries tend
00:39to have a functioning air con system that can keep people cool.
00:43And there is a note as well to be mindful of people within the community who may be
00:47more vulnerable.
00:48Those who are a bit older, younger or who also have compromised health conditions already.
00:54So what's driving this weather is essentially from the interior of the country, moving right
00:59from the south with a northerly breeze coming across.
01:02It's pushing this weather system right across outer western New South Wales and then into
01:07the coastal fringes as well.
01:09Now yesterday we saw Wilcannia see its record ever for December.
01:14More than 45 degrees was the peak temperature out there.
01:18As this weather though has moved easterly, we've seen some very high temperatures across
01:22several parts of the state, both north, south, inland and coastal.
01:27The good news is as a trough works its way across the state, we are seeing cooling conditions.
01:32They can also be observed down south in Victoria, for example, where the peak temperature is
01:37about 15 degrees lower today than it was yesterday and we are seeing cooling conditions come
01:42across.
01:43Now for Sydney itself, Jemma, well there is a southerly buster coming through in the evening
01:49and that should really drop off temperatures by as much as 10 degrees.
01:53People will be looking forward to it as it comes into the evening.
01:56Places that are remaining hot as well though include the Hunter Valley which is home to
01:59hundreds of thousands of people.
02:01Now fire danger is moderate across most of the state, which is a good sign and fire authorities
02:07broadly are quite happy here at RFS headquarters that there haven't been completely out of
02:12control or emergency level blazes, there's only a few fires that authorities are having
02:17to contend with.
02:18They are concerned, however, for later in the week after it cools initially, it will
02:23get warmer again and that's where we could see authorities tested somewhat as they hope
02:27to contain any bad weather such like we've seen in Victoria where we had some significant
02:32out of control fires.