Severe weather warnings have been issued for parts of NSW as Sydney swelters through its second hottest November day on record -- but forecasters say a cool change is on the way on Saturday.
The barometer on Observatory Hill hit 40.9 degrees on Friday shortly after 2pm on Friday, putting it is just shy of the official current highest record for a November day of 41.8 degrees (which people suffered through on November 25, 1982), the Bureau of Meteorology told the Huffington Post Australia.
While walking anywhere at the moment feels like trying to swim through a block of cheese, spar a thought for Sydney Airport which hit 42.7 just before 3pm.
“It is significant, definitely,” Severe Weather Meteorologist Andrew Heigh said.
The BOM has issued a fire weather warnings for the Illawarra/Shoalhaven, Southern Ranges, Eastern Riverina and Northern Riverina fire areas, as well as a severe warning for damaging winds in Sydney and the ACT.
He said a cool change is expected to move in at about 10pm on Friday night, easing the heat to a relatively fine but cloudy 23 degrees.
Sydney’s CBD reportedly increased more than 10 degrees in just 45 minutes on Friday, with Observatory Hill jumping 29.8 degrees to 40 degrees in 45 minutes.
While not reaching the same temperatures as Sydney on Monday, Melbourne still managed to terrify its citizins with its own spectacular performance -- severe thunderstorms on Friday cause several blackouts and is believed to have caused a fire in a rubbish dump.
It’s been reported about 100 firefighters and a water-bombing helicopter have been involved in the effort to bring the rubbish blaze under control.
The NSW Ambulance have put out some handy tips to beat the heat.
The extreme heat allowed for some culinary experimentation to answer the age old question "is it hot enough for me to cook an egg on the pavement for some reason."
It isn't.