Australia prepares for sweltering summer after hottest spring on record

Australians will have to sweat it out in another heatwave which is expected to hit this week, as the Bureau of Meteorology revealed the country recorded its hottest spring on record. It comes as the eastern coast of Australia sweltered through a week-long heatwave, and preparing to brace for more in the first week of summer. In the recently-released season summary, the BOM reported its warmest spring on record, dating back to 1910. The national mean temperature for spring, which is recorded by evaluating the average of the 112 weather stations located across the country, was an estimated 2.08C higher than the baseline 1961-1990 average – a far hotter spring than normal and a sign of what’s to come for summer. It was the hottest spring on record in Queensland for mean and minimum temperatures residents, which broke its previous record in 2020 by about 0.4C. The state’s maximum temperature was the second-highest on record. It was a similar story for Western Australia, which also recorded its warmest spring mean temperature, while mean temperatures in South Australia were the second-highest on record. In fact, no state recorded a colder-than-usual spring, with each area of the country recording their top 10 warmest seasons on record. Not only was spring the hottest on record, it was also the wettest, with a mean national rainfall of 92mm, about 28 per cent above the 1961-1990 average. Across the country, September and November were wetter than the seasonal average, though October was drier than average. For most of WA and the Northern Territory, and parts of Queensland, NSW and SA, rainfall was very much above average for spring. It was the fourth-wettest spring on record for WA, slightly more than double the 1961-1990 baseline average. “Some stations, including several with more than 50 years of data, had their record highest total rainfall for spring,” the BOM said. “However, the same could not be said for parts of southwestern Western Australia, southeast South Australia, southeastern NSW and northeastern Queensland, where rainfall was below to very much below average for spring.” Victoria also recorded its driest spring since 2019, with rainfall below average in large parts of the state. A hot, wet summer The first week of summer has given Australians a taste of what is to come, with the nation anticipating a hot and humid summer as ongoing thunderstorms and wet weather create muggy conditions. On Monday, temperatures exceed 30C across most of Australia, with severe thunderstorms and wet conditions passing through the southern areas of the Northern Territory and northern South Australia. The severe thunderstorms are set to make its way to the eastern states by Tuesday, with stormy and humid conditions for most of northern Victoria, central and northern NSW, and southern Queensland. The BOM has warned residents of flash flooding across the southern slopes of NSW and eastern Riverina, which could be potentially life-threatening. Extreme heatwaves will likely continue through the week, beginning through inland parts of the western Kimberley and Interior in Western Australia and western South Australia. By Wednesday, these extreme heat conditions are expected to shift