Wayne "Bronco" Lunn has endured many summers in the shearing business in north-western NSW over four decades but he's never seen one like this year's.
"It's bloody hot work," Mr Lunn told Fairfax Media on Saturday morning as the region braced for what could be record-melting heat across the state. "It hasn't been so hot for so long. This seems to be going on and on."
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On Friday, his team of 11 - eight men and three women - were toiling in extreme conditions near Carinda, relieving 451 sheep of their fleece in temperatures that nudged towards 50 degrees.
"We ran out of sheep otherwise we'd have kept going," Mr Lunn, 64, said during a visit to Dubbo which was expecting a relatively cool maximum of 45 degrees on Saturday. "Everyone's got to make a dollar, you know."
Shearing sheds typically have a few fans to give shearers and their teams picking up and sorting the wool a breather. Smaller sheds heat up more, though, because the animals have to remain outside before they can shorn.
To beat the heat, teams start at 6am and take breaks every two hours or pack it in if conditions become unbearable. Lately, though, that pattern has been disrupted by the incessant heat.
"It's just won't cool down," said Mr Lunn, who lives "about 40 miles" from Walgett.
In fact, White Cliffs to the south set a new record minimum for any month in NSW on Saturday morning, with the mercury dipping only to 34.2 degrees, beating the previous mark of 34 degrees set in Ivanhoe in December 1994, according to Bureau of Meteorology data.
![Big, hot country: Claire Priestley inspects cattle on the family's Salt Glen station in far north-western NSW.](/web/20170211045645im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/a/o/p/b/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.guanfb.png/1486784363338.jpg)
Ivanhoe, though, may snatch build on a record of its own, with the town forecast to hit 48 degrees on Saturday. It currently holds the high mark for February in NSW of 48.5 degrees, a record it set 13 years ago.
Wilcannia, also in the state's far west, leads to state so far on Saturday, touching 47 degrees at 2.30pm, bureau data show.
![From flooding rains to searing heat: Chris Priestley examines a bore at the family's Salt Glen station near Carinda.](/web/20170211045645im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/a/o/n/j/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.guanfb.png/1486784363338.jpg)
Walgett, meanwhile, is one of a couple of NSW towns on course to smash the state's current record of 50 consecutive days with maximums of 35 degrees or warmer set in 2012-13 at Bourke Airport. Walgett, which is expecting 46 degrees on Saturday, could reach at least 53 days topping 35 degrees on current forecasts.
"It's just horrible," said Claire Priestley, who lives at Salt Glen, near Carinda. "It's just getting to me."
Ms Priestley and her brother Chris were out on their property on Saturday morning, inspecting bores and how livestock of about 400 agistment cattle were faring.
"Hundreds of kangaroos are coming to our dam each evening" to get some relief, Ms Priestley said.
Heavy rains that turned the region into a quagmire in October and November are a fast-wilting memory. "We couldn't get out for six weeks," she said.
Water restrictions now loom across parts of the region, with graziers increasingly anxious about how much upstream cotton growers have able to access for irrigation, Ms Priestley said.
"It's a bit frightening," she said, referring to the rapid drying out of the region. "There's no rain coming on the forecasts."