A long, hot summer in Australia is smashing weather records, with about a fifth of the country predicted to swelter in temperatures of more than 40C on Saturday.
The hottest days yet this summer are forecast for parts of New South Wales and Queensland, which have taken the brunt of a series of heatwaves in recent months.
Soaring use of air-conditioning has put the country’s power networks to the test. Electricity shortages caused a blackout for 40,000 people in South Australia on Thursday, and businesses and households in New South Wales have been urged to curb their power consumption to avoid similar problems.
Meanwhile politicians have clashed over the reliability of power networks and the merits of phasing out coal-fired power for renewable energy as Australia pursues its commitments under the Paris climate deal.
Stephen Wood, a senior forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology, said roughly 20% of Australia – an area equivalent to 1.5m sq km (roughly 580,000 sq miles) – would experience peak temperatures of over 40C on Saturday.
“To have such a large area of temperatures above 40C and for so long is definitely unusual,” he said. “These next three days, large areas are going to suffer through the pain of it, unfortunately.”
Sydney airport recorded its hottest February day ever at 42.9C, breaking a 37-year record. Wood said the month was on track to be the hottest on record in both Sydney and Brisbane, following on from their hottest January on record.
Peak temperatures of 48C were forecast in areas around Ivanhoe, in central New South Wales. Three places in north-west NSW were forecast next week to break the state record of 50 consecutive days above 35C, Wood said.
A total fire ban for the state was declared and residents of the Hunter Valley were warned of “catastrophic” fire conditions in coming days. Horse racing and school sports events scheduled for the weekend were cancelled.
The heatwaves have been caused by the buildup of hot air in the desert interior of Australia. This summer had been unusual in the dearth of any cold fronts from the southern Indian Ocean to “flush out” that reservoir of hot air, Wood said.
Tim Flannery, a prominent environmentalist and former chief commissioner of the government’s former Climate Commission, said this summer’s heatwaves were “documented to be part of a growing trend” in Australia’s south-east cities.
“The heatwaves are coming earlier in the season, they can be experienced later in the season, they’re longer and they’re more intense,” said Flannery, now with the non-profit organisation Climate Council. “That trend is just continuing across the country and across the world.”
Flannery said this Australian summer had probably given many people in southern cities their first jolting awareness of the effects of climate change.
“Unless you’re a farmer, or you’re out in the regions or you visit places like the Great Barrier Reef, it’s possible that you would’ve got by without having much direct experience of climate change beyond an intensified weather event,” he said.
“But these heatwaves are by far the most dangerous of the extreme weather phenomena we see in this country. They kill more people and they certainly are felt into the cities. They’re a good gauge, if you want, of people’s experience of climate change.”
The government seized on the South Australia blackouts as evidence of the folly of the state’s promotion of wind power in its energy mix. The treasurer, Scott Morrison, brought a lump of coal into parliament on Thursday to make a case for the importance of the fossil fuel in reliable power supply.
“Don’t be afraid. Don’t be scared,” Morrison told the Labor opposition, whose state counterparts are pursuing renewable energy targets of as high as 50% by 2030.
New South Wales, which relies largely on coal for power, and the Australian Capital Territory were predicted to face power cuts on Friday, but in the end this did not happen.
Nevertheless, the warning prompted the Queensland government to export a spare 1,000 megawatts of power to help NSW avoid having to cut electricity.
Mark Bailey, the Queensland energy minister, said the power crisis in New South Wales was taking place in “a state with one of the lowest levels of large-scale renewables in the country.
“That’s something [the federal government] can’t explain because it doesn’t fit in with their ideological position.”
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