The night from Saturday to Sunday was the hottest on record for a month of November in Sydney, Australia’s largest city, which is currently experiencing a heatwave period with daytime temperatures reaching 40 °.
At its lowest, the temperature in the middle of the night dropped to 25 ° 3, but at 4.30 a.m. it had already risen to 30 °, and quickly reached 40 ° in the middle of the day again, for the second day in a row.
The New South Wales region, where the city is located, is “in a severe heatwave”, according to the meteorological services, and other cities in south-eastern Australia also broke new heat records on Saturday. , with 43 ° 2 at Griffith and 45 ° 7 at Mildura.
Authorities have banned all fires from most of the region, which was hit by catastrophic fires during the last southern summer.
About 60 forest fires were underway in the region, but most were under control, thanks in particular to cool winds from the south.
These were the first fires since the devastating summer of 2019-2020, which burned an area the size of almost half of France, killed 33 people and forced tens of thousands to flee.
The fires had also burned or forced to flee nearly three billion animals, and cost the economy seven billion dollars.
The current heatwave comes two weeks after government scientists warned that climate change would bring more wildfires, droughts and cyclones to Australia.
Australia still relies heavily on fossil fuels, and its Conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison has repeatedly denied that there is a link between climate change and wildfires.
He also said he was determined to keep Australia one of the top exporters of fossil fuels.