A Once in a Century Heat Wave

[wheelspinner]

Today Melbourne experienced sweltering heat and a top temperature of 43C (109F).

It was so hot the rail lines buckled, causing peak hour chaos: www.theage.com.au/national/heat-plays-havoc-with-train-services-20090128-7r9i.html. I was smart enough to skive off early and avoided the worst of it, but it was still a nasty trip home. I couldn't face the 15 minute walk home from the station, and had to get my wife to come pick me up.

The forecast is for 43 degrees both tomorrow and Friday and maybe 40 on Saturday. If that happens, it will be the first time we have had 4 days of 40+ since 1908. There's once for the record books.

Global warming sceptics will be getting short shrift around here this week.

[wheelspinner]

Well it happened. This week was the hottest on record in Melbourne, with us enduring 3 days of more than 43C heat for the first time in recorded history. Yesterday it hit 45C (113F) before a "cool"change came through and reduced the temperature to a mere 35C or so.

Train travelers (such as myself) got it in the neck. More than 1300 train services were cancelled, leaving thousands of commuters stranded on baking station platforms. Rail lines warped and buckled in the heat, forcing partial closures of some lines. Sometimes buses were available to bypass these closed sections, but often there was nothing.

Power outages were frequent as the state struggled to keep consumption, bolstered by all those air conditioners, below supply limits. Finally the power system failed when an explosion at one of the main generators drastically reduced available supply, tipping Melbourne into chaos. The rail system had to be shut down completely, traffic lights were out and blackouts rolled across the city.

A colleague called in sick to work because he and his entire family had come down with heat stroke - and they're Indian!

Bush fires broke out in places, including one that burnt out 15,000 acres and destroyed several homes. Given that we had very high winds on at least one fiercely hot day, this could actually have been a lot worse.

So you can all stop complaining about how cold you are now.

www.theage.com.au/national/mass-power-outages-cause-chaos-in-victoria-20090131-7u7g.html?page=-1

[MacBeth]

With climate change showing iteself everywhere, I suspect this will not be a 'Once in a Century' event

[oskar]

But, Beth, we're in the middle of an ice age or something.

[MacBeth]

I keep forgetting that part.....

[Georgina]

That's incredible, WS. One rarely thinks of the potential catastrophic consequences of temperatures like that. I hope it breaks soon.

[wheelspinner]

Jan 30, 2009 17:36:00 GMT -5 MacBeth said:

With climate change showing iteself everywhere, I suspect this will not be a 'Once in a Century' event

The other shoe dropped today. We had the second-driest January on record. Melbourne got only 0.8mm of rain for the entire month. Our average January rainfall is 47.9 mm.