More hot days and warm nights are in store for Queensland, with weather officials warning cooler temperatures won’t arrive until early next week.
Parts of the state and northern New South Wales are expected to see temperatures between two and eight degrees above the November average, the Bureau of Meteorology said on Thursday morning, “the hottest we have seen for several days in a row”.
“It’s going to be difficult to manage the heat and manage the heat stress on your body. So it’s just a reminder to stay cool, stay indoors and stay as hydrated as possible,” Miriam Bradbury, a BOM senior meteorologist, told a briefing.
“Unfortunately, this heat will persist through Friday and even into the early part of the weekend. We are not expecting a real cooling of conditions in New South Wales and Queensland until early next week.”
Meanwhile, Sydney was still recovering after a series of severe storms hit NSW on Wednesday. The NSW State Emergency Service responded to approximately 2,300 calls in the 24-hour period up to 5am today.
The busiest area was the Sydney suburb of Blacktown, where there were more than 350 storm-related jobs. In Orange, authorities responded to about 170 incidents, and in the town of Nevertyre, west of Dubbo, the SES said “whole roofs were blown off properties, including private houses and sheds”.
Large numbers of trees were downed in Sydney, western NSW and the Central Coast.
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BOM said strong winds lashed NSW yesterday, including gusts of 119km/h at Nobby’s Head and 109km/h at Orange and Dubbo. In Queensland, winds topped 109 km/h in Dalby and reached 107 km/h in Goondiwindi.
The threat of severe storms remains in place for parts of north-eastern NSW and much of Queensland’s eastern districts today. Bradbury said there would be “very slight relief” to fire conditions in other parts of NSW on Thursday, but warned it would remain hot, dry and dangerous.
Ausgrid said its crews were working to restore power to many homes in NSW yesterday hit by high winds and heavy rain, which also downed power lines and damaged infrastructure across its network. About 15,000 customers were without power in Sydney, Newcastle, Central Coast and Singleton on Thursday morning – with another 25,000 having their power restored.
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“Crews worked throughout the night to respond to more than 900 electrical hazards reported by emergency services and customers, including downed poles, downed power lines, downed trees and downed branches,” Ausgrid said in a statement on Thursday. “Most customers are expected back by today, but some outages may extend into tomorrow depending on the extent of damage and access.”
Endeavor Energy, which supplies electricity to parts of western Sydney including Blacktown, had 322 active outages this morning, affecting more than 28,000 customers. The company was canceling all planned maintenance in order to redeploy crews from the south coast to help with major repair efforts.
“At the peak of the small, intense storm, more than 61,000 customers were without power due to winds gusting up to 100 km/h in the area,” the company said. “We have opened storm centers across the region to coordinate crews and respond to more than 750 reported electrical hazards, the highest number reported in the last decade.”
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