Australia sets record high winter temperature of 41.6 degrees

Australia registered a record-high winter temperature on Monday, with the mercury hitting 41.6 degrees Celsius (106.7 degrees Fahrenheit) in part of its rugged and remote northwest coast.

The Bureau of Meteorology said it logged the scorching reading from a military training facility at Yampi Sound at 3:37pm local time – apparently smashing the previous record by 0.4 degrees.

The reading was “the hottest August temperature for any location in Australia” and “the new Australia-wide maximum temperature record for any winter month”, a Bureau of Meteorology spokesperson said.

Official data shows average temperatures for Australia steadily rising, with climate change fuelling more intense bushfires, floods, drought and heatwaves.

While the record is “provisionally confirmed”, scientists still have to make sure the recording was not the result of some local anomaly or instrument failure before it officially enters the record books.

The previous record of 41.2 degrees was set in August 2020 at nearby West Roebuck.

The antipodean winter runs from the beginning of June until the end of August.

About 18 per cent of Australia is desert, and searing heat is common year-round away from temperate zones.

Australia’s climate is heavily influenced by three cyclical climate patterns: changes in Indian Ocean temperatures; changes in a belt of wind that moves between Australia and Antarctica – the so-called Southern Annular Mode – and changes in Pacific weather patterns known as El Nino and La Nina.

Certain combinations of these three climate conditions can cause exceptionally hot, dry or wet conditions in different parts of Australia.

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