Sydney, Jan 21 (UNI) Forecasters have issued a heatwave warning lasting several days for almost half of Australia, with a cyclone off the country's west coast driving hot air across the country.
The Bureau of Meteorology on Tuesday issued a three-day heatwave warning for a vast swathe of Australia from the west coast city of Perth through central Australia to Brisbane on the east coast.
Both Perth and Brisbane, over 3,500 kilometers apart, are subject to severe heatwave warnings, with maximum temperatures forecast to be up to 12 degrees Celsius higher than usual.
According to the weather agency, the maximum temperature will hit at least 37 degrees Celsius in Perth every day between Tuesday and Friday while in Brisbane it has forecast maximums between 31 and 37 degrees Celsius, with both cities warned to expect high humidity.
It said that severe heatwave conditions were more likely to be challenging for vulnerable people, including the elderly.
Parts of Perth recorded maximum temperatures of 45 degrees Celsius on Monday. In the city of Geraldton, 370 km north of Perth, the temperature hit 49.3 degrees Celsius, equalling the record for its hottest-ever day.
The weather agency has partly attributed the heatwave to tropical cyclone Sean in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia (WA).
The cyclone, which formed on Sunday, prompted emergency warnings for residents in WA's north and brought damaging winds and heavy rainfall to the region before moving back out to sea.
The weather agency's senior forecaster Dean Narramore told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the slow-moving cyclone was pushing hot and windy air from the Central Desert into western and southern Australia while a long period of west to north-westerly winds are driving desert heat into Queensland.
UNI XINHUA ARN