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A trough over eastern Australia is causing showers and thunderstorms across western and southern NSW, inland Qld and northern Vic. A broad region of low pressure is triggering storms across the northern tropics. Onshore winds are bringing showers to eastern NSW and southeast Qld.
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Today, 1:19AM UTC
Extreme heat returning to southeastern Australia
A large portion of southeastern Australia is set to see furnace-like conditions from Thursday or Friday across the Australia Day long weekend and into the new week, with inland areas experiencing the most extreme heat as temperatures soar as high as 47°C at some locations. The timing of the coming heatwave means that many locations will see an extremely hot day next Monday, January 26, which is Australia Day. Huge, persistent pool of hot air to bake inland areas As you can see on the image below, large parts of inland South Australia, New South Wales, southern Queensland and northern Victoria will see the worst of the heat. The far SE corner of the Northern Territory will also be impacted. Image: Predicted maximums across the SE Aus mainland for Tuesday, January 27, 2026, according to the ECMWF model. Oodnadatta in South Australia’s North East Pastoral forecast district is expecting a run of maximums of 47°C, 47°C, 46°C and 45°C from Saturday through to Tuesday. Mildura in Victoria’s northwest corner is expecting a run of maximums of 44°C, 45°C, 46°C and 46°C from Saturday through to Tuesday. Bourke in the NSW Upper Western forecast district is expecting a run of maximums of 43°C, 45°C, 46°C and 47°C from Saturday through to Tuesday. Birdsville in far SW Queensland’s Channel Country is expecting a six-day run with maximums of 44°C or 45°C from Thursday through to Tuesday. Alice Springs will see maximums of 43°C, 42°C and 42°C from Friday through to Sunday, and while you expect to see summer temperatures like that in The Alice at times, it’s worth noting that the city’s average maximum in January (the hottest month) is 36.5°C. Temperatures rise in Melbourne and Adelaide The capital cities should be spared the worst of the heat, although it will still warm up significantly in Adelaide and Melbourne. Adelaide can expect maximums of at least 35°C from Friday through to Tuesday, with the two hottest days looking like Saturday (41°C) and Monday (40°C). For Melbourne, the hottest day looks like next Tuesday, when the forecast maximum of 37°C could activate the Australian Open’s Extreme Weather Policy. Coastal parts of Sydney won’t see anything like the sweltering conditions of January 10, when the mercury topped 42°C for the second time this summer. But while the city is expecting 33°C on Sunday, the mercury will approach 40°C in places like Penrith in the city’s outer west. Canberra has not quite hit 40°C this summer, with three days when the mercury reached 39°C. That temperature should be reached again as the national capital experiences a hot run of days with maximums of 35°C, 39°C, 37°C and 39°C from Saturday through to Tuesday. Like most Australian locations south of the tropics, January is Hobart’s hottest month. And while the city’s average January maximum is a relatively mild 21.9°C, the mercury has risen as high as 41.8°C (in January 2013). In the days ahead, the hottest air won’t cross Bass Strait, with Hobart’s hottest day of the forecast period looking like Saturday, with a top of 29°C. What’s causing this spell of extreme heat? "This heatwave is being driven by a slow-moving weather pattern over southern Australia," Weatherzone meteorologist Yoska Hernandez explains. "With minimal change expected in the overall circulation, hot air continues to spread across southeastern parts of the country, allowing the extreme heat to persist. "At the same time, a tropical low in the eastern Indian Ocean is forecast to strengthen, with a possible tropical cyclone approaching the Kimberley coast late this week. "This tropical system is influencing large-scale atmospheric circulation, helping sustain upper-level ridging and reinforcing the pattern that is keeping extreme heat entrenched across southeastern Australia."
20 Jan 2026, 7:55AM UTC
WA tourist hotspot hits 49.2°C in record January heat
Shark Bay Airport in Western Australia has eclipsed its old January heat record by almost two degrees, with a reading of 49.2°C just before 4pm (AWST). The airport serves as the gateway to the tourist spot of Monkey Mia, where bottlenose dolphins famously swim into shore. Locals in the nearby town of Denham would have realised it was going to be a scorcher when the mercury at Shark Bay Airport soared to 46.7°C at 11:58am, when it was technically still the morning. A few minutes later, the old January record of 47.3°C was sent packing. When the mercury reached 49.1°C at 2:52pm, it was the hottest temperature recorded anywhere in Australia to date in 2026. It then edged up to 49.2°C at 3:45pm. Image: Dolphins near the shore at at Monkey Mia. Source: iStock/ChristianB. Why was Shark Bay so hot on Tuesday? We outlined the reasons for the ongoing WA heatwave in our story on Monday. They included: Hot air from the interior of Australia A persistent pattern of winds circulating around a high pressure centred south of Australia (air circulates anti-clockwise around highs). These winds are drying out and heating up rapidly in the continent’s interior before pushing to the west coast. The influence of the monsoon trough The monsoon trough in the tropics has been providing ample air that is transported out over areas of high pressure, where it slowly makes its way to the surface and warms up again. That was the big picture. For Shark Bay itself, the key factor on Tuesday was winds blowing from exactly the right direction to heat that region up to record-breaking levels. Image: The ECMWF model predicted maximums for Tuesday, January 20, 2026, showed a vast area of pink shading (44°C or higher). Although Shark Bay Airport (near the town of Denham in the map above) is on a peninsula with ocean on three sides, the narrow stretch of water to its east is shallow and dotted with sandbars. So winds come off the mainland with no significant cooling effect before reaching the peninsula. The hottest conditions occur at Shark Bay occur in northeasterlies, when the super-heated air from the Pilbara region pushes straight to Shark Bay. Northeasterlies had also set in during the hottest part of the day on February 18, 2024, when Shark Bay Airport set its all-time high temperature record of 49.8°C. Meanwhile Perth’s hottest temperature to 4pm local time was 39.1°C, although the mercury had tipped over 40°C in at least two locations across the city. The city of Geraldton, in WA's Central West region, hit a blistering 47.1°C earlier at 1:18pm, which was its highest reading to 4pm.
20 Jan 2026, 12:41AM UTC
2025 was Australia's warmest year on record for ocean temperatures
Australia’s ocean temperatures reached a record high in 2025, with sea surface temperatures warming close to 1°C above the long-term average. The mean annual sea surface temperature in the Australian region during 2025 was 21.13°C, which is 0.93°C above the 1961-1990 average. This was Australia’s warmest annual anomaly in records dating back to 1900, beating the previous record of +0.90°C in 2024. Image: Annual sea surface temperature anomaly for the Australian region between 1900 and 2025. Source: Bureau of Meteorology. Climate drivers and atmospheric heat behind record ocean warmth Heat at the surface of the ocean is driven by warmth in the atmosphere and distributed by wind and ocean currents. Unsurprisingly, 2025 was also one of the warmest years on record for air temperatures in Australia and this abnormal atmospheric heat helped to warm the ocean’s surface in the Australian region. In addition to this near-record atmospheric warmth, abnormally warm water was also pushed towards Australia by La Niña and a negative Indian Ocean Dipole in 2025. Both climate drivers enhanced westward and eastward wind patterns respectively, which pushed warm ocean water towards Australia’s coasts, causing significant heat build-up to the northeast and northwest of the country. Record warmth in Coral Sea and Tasman Sea The build-up of ocean heat was particularly apparent to the east of Australia, with the Coral Sea and Tasman Sea both registering annual sea surface temperatures more than 1°C above the long-term averages. This was the first time in recorded history that either sea has exceeded the 1961-1990 average by more than 1°C. Image: Sea surface temperature anomaly in 2025. Source: ClimatePulse / Copernicus / ECMWF Ocean temperatures surrounding Australia’s northern tropics were also exceptionally warm early in 2025, with January marking the fourth consecutive month of record-breaking ocean warmth to the north of Australia. Australia’s ocean heat exceeds global anomaly in 2025 Global ocean temperatures were also among the highest on record in 2025 according to data published earlier this month in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences. This study found that the global mean sea surface temperature in 2025 was about 0.49°C above the 1981-2010 average, which was the third warmest year on record. Image: Global annual sea surface temperature anomalies in 2025. Source: ClimatePulse / Copernicus / ECMWF One reason the global ocean temperature didn’t match Australia’s record-breaking warmth in 2025 was because of the cooling effect of La Niña in the tropical Pacific Ocean. La Niña’s cooling influence also helped prevent air temperatures from reaching record highs in 2025, although it was still one of the world’s top three warmest years on record for surface air temperature.