Looks like you Melbourne guys are getting a cool change tomorrow as well.
For those who want to play along outside Melbourne, you can check the latest readings here.
It’s about 42 near me, but the killer is the north wind blowing at around 40km/h (not terribly fast), but it is sucking the moisture out of everything and there’s dust and pollen galore. Half of my shrubs in the backyard have dead tips and will need to be pruned when the heat dies down in a month or so. Hopefully they will recover although I expect to lose many, many plants due to the heat and lack of water.
The air-con (evaporative) has been on for hours and it’s around 32 degrees upstairs (about 26 downstairs).
For me, it’s the sustained period of time that it has been warm that is hard to cope with. A few days hot then a few days cool is fine. Days and weeks of sustained high temperature means you never quite get to recover overnight and you start to feel tired and grumpy.
The kids and I will be in the pool this afternoon (with loads of sunscreen) so we’ll be happy for a few hours anyway.
Isn’t it sad that we’re excited about that? “Only” 41? 
Well, I was excited until it came in with incredibly hot, dusty winds that overpowered the evaporative airconditioner so that it blew hot, crazy-dry air until we turned it off. Hiding out in the one room with refrigerated aircon right now, along with hubby and the cats.
Hope you’re not still crook - the heat sucks enough without adding a wonky tummy to the equation. (Me, I was up because the cooler evening weather fooled me into feeling energised. I’m right over that this morning. 
)
36.5C at 1200. 4.4 degree drop in one hour. Is this it, can it be…?? HOORAY!
46.5C here in Corowa (near Albury) and it’s 2.45pm. And as Caught mentioned, it’s the dust and the wind that are killing today. The sky is grey and visibility is much reduced and it’s just stinkin’.
It hit 46.4C at 3.04 today - Melbourne’s hottest recorded temperature. It’s not too bad inside because the house hasn’t had time to warm up like last week.
Sunset is due at 8:27pm tonight (less than half an hour from now), but it’s been dark since 5:30. We’re completely engulfed in smoke, and as I was leaving work I was getting ash in my eyes. My car is covered in ash and I had to wash the windscreen before I left the carpark so I could see.
The fires are all around us, really. To the North at Rawson, Erica and Walhalla, to the South through Churchill, Jeeralang, Callignee, and towards Yarram and the coast, to the East at Toongabbie, Glengarry and Cowwarr and to the west at Bunyip, Warragul, Drouin and Garfield. We’re hoping my brother and his sister-in-law’s houses stay safe in those last two towns. One of my co-workers was almost in tears today as she couldn’t reach her husband at Yarram - he works at a nursery over there now because the one he worked at in Cowwarr was lost in the fires two years ago. Another co-worker was at home today sending us pictures of the fires which were within two kilometers of her house when last I heard from her. My friend, a volunteer in the CFA, just sent me a text message from the fire front saying they just lost a truck but according to the news, several have been lost.
At 4:30 this afternoon as the sky darkened ominously and everything began to glow orange, and to the background music of dozens of fire trucks racing by, my co-worker Sam said “It looks like what I always thought the end of the world would look like”. She said exactly what I was thinking.
Cazzle- good luck and I hope nothing bad happens to you and your friends. I feel so hopeless to assist.
Cazzle: Good luck & I hope everything’s okay for you and yours.
Bites When Provoked: I was okay after a while. The cat didn’t let me get back to sleep until about 0600, but by the time I woke up again at 0800 my tummy felt much better and The Unpleasantness had passed.
We’ve got a refrigerated aircon, but it’s only a portable unit that needs to run an exhaust tube out the window. This means that in the horrible weather we’ve been having, it “only” cools us down to about 28-30 degrees. But it’s still better than being outside.
One good thing about hubby being in hospital, though, is that the Lyell Mac is WELL airconditioned. I’ve been spending between 6-12 hours a day there for the last week, so the heat hasn’t been too bad. And it means too that he’s been out of all of this week’s weather. Not that it’s doing him any good, but I haven’t had to stress about him trying to walk home from work.
I think it is time we moved this from The Pit so a new thread here.
Alright SmartAleq do you know that in Australia in Melbourne we are experiencing drought conditions, this means we have to conserve water, I water all my plants in the garden with washing machine effluent, we cannnot simple just turn on the sprinkler or be as decadent as filling up a whole bath tub with water to wallow in when we are only allowed less than 150 litres per household a day of water to survive.