Guardian - What It's Like In Victoria These Days, When The Temperature Finally Dips Below 104F At 8:30 PM

[hatrack]

EDIT

Locals in these areas are used to hot summers. I remember those country summers as a kid being sharp and uncomfortable, full of painful sunburn and dust. But it’s hard to know how different they felt to this week’s searing heat. Did 38C back then feel like 48C now? Are our memories of past weather events softened or sharpened by how we feel about what’s happening now? Extreme heat like we felt on Tuesday is a bully. The very air seems to be trying to smother you. It pushes on to you, around you, squeezing at your chest, quickly working its way through your clothes, into your throat. Bare skin quickly starts to hurt in the sun, but shade only gives relief from its harsh stab, not from the heat itself.

Outside, the concrete of the deserted main street was blinding, and the scent of sun-baked eucalypt leaves and pine needles hung in the heavy, insistent air. Even indoors, I could feel my body slowing everything down to cope. My fingers felt clumsier. Thinking took longer. Everything felt like it was swelling, and despite my diligent consumption of water and Hydralyte, I couldn’t quite escape the persistent, low-level nausea.

But the heat we felt the day before, when it reached 44.3C, was also deeply unpleasant. And strings of blasting hot summer days are a feature of this landscape, not a bug. Yes, they are getting worse, and scientists have told us again and again why that is, and what we need to do to stop it. But if you live out here, it’s easy to think, what’s a few degrees when you’re in the middle of nine days straight of what feels extremely normal?

The last time I was in the country in heat like this was the last time those now-broken records were set: on 7 February 2009, the day we now call Black Saturday. I was in Buxton with friends, chasing a swim and then a party, as the hot winds dried our river-wet hair in minutes and we didn’t think much about the huge black plume billowing up in the west until the fire roared over the ridge in front of us and the trees exploded.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/28/australia-heatwave-ouyen-victoria-temperatures-how-it-feels