Long-standing statewide heat records have been broken in Queensland and New South Wales, with Birdsville in Qld and Bourke in NSW registering the hottest October day on record for any location in their respective states.

The official maximums won’t be known until 9am Wednesday, but as of 4:30pm (AEDT) in NSW and 3:30pm (AEST) in Qld:

Birdsville in Queensland’s Channel Country had reached 46.1°C. Remarkably, that’s a full degree above the previous October record of 45.1°C, which also occurred in Birdsville, in records going back well over a century to 1892.

Bourke in the Upper Western forecast district of New South Wales reached 44.8°C at 4pm. That broke the old NSW state record for October of 43.9°C at Brewarrina by almost a degree.

Image: Bourke, NSW, on a much cooler day in autumn. Source: iStock/JohnCarnemolla.

Numerous other locations have broken local heat records for October this Tuesday, folllowing on from Monday when October records fell at sites in three states – SA, NSW and Qld.

Today’s site (but not statewide) records include:

• Thargomindah in far southwest Queensland reached 45.1°C just after 3pm. That beat the old record of 43.1°C by two degrees, in records going all the way back to 1879.
• Tibooburra in the far northwest corner of NSW reached 42.8°C – its hottest day in records going back to 1886. The "old" record of 42.6°C lasted just a day.

The searing outback heat will begin to dissipate overnight, with Wednesday maximums in the low-to-mid 30s in all of the locations mentioned above. That’s still relatively warm for this time of year, but it’s around 10 degrees down on Tuesday’s extremes.

Image: Forecast temperatures for NSW for Wednesday, October 22, according to the ECMWF model. Some coastal areas will be hotter than the NW corner of the state, where heat records were broken on Tuesday.

The heat will then be pushed in a southeasterly direction, creating uncomfortable conditions in eastern NSW and SE Queensland. Record temperatures are on the cards in some coastal NSW locations (including the Sydney basin) for Wednesday, with extreme fire danger already declared in many areas.

Please check the Weatherzone warnings page for the latest information on alerts in your area, and check our news feed on Wednesday for the latest on the eastern NSW heat and fire situation.