The RSPCA has renewed its warning not to leave dogs in hot cars, with multiple such fatalities already this summer. Police are investigating the deaths of four dogs this week in Gulgong, NSW, after being left in the back of a ute.
“It’s apparent some people are just not getting the message that a parked car is no place for a dog. It can be lethal, as we see all too often,” said the RSPCA’s NSW chief inspector, David O’Shannessy.
The RSPCA’s “Just Six Minutes” campaign refers to the length of time it takes a dog to die in a hot vehicle. Owners of dogs that die from being left in a car can be fined $22,000 or sentenced to two years’ prison.
Though not all classrooms in Australia are air-conditioned, it seems there is no heatwave-related equivalent of a “snow day” granting pupils a day off. (In New Zealand, there are sometimes “earthquake days”.)
The ABC has education departments’ policies by state and it seems only in extreme circumstances will the heat force school closures. In Victoria, “extreme weather conditions” may just mean a shorter lunch break (though dismissal time is “adjusted accordingly”).
Just how bad is it going to get? The word for the weekend
We’re not far off the forecast highs for the day, with Canberra at 35.3C, Sydney at 33.7C, Adelaide at 32.9C and Brisbane at 30.1C. (Melbourne is at a very comfortable 20.7C, and Perth, where there are flooding warnings, is just below 15.9C.)
The Bureau of Meteorology has warned of severe to extreme heatwave conditions for southern Queensland and northern NSW for “several days”, with widespread temperatures in the low to mid-40s. Queensland also has high humidity to contend with.
At the weekend, the severe heatwave will contract to eastern NSW with localised extreme patches through the northern coastal areas. SA and Victoria will experience easing conditions.
Heading into Monday, “extreme” conditions will give way to those that are just “severe”, with a low-intensity heatwave moving across central and southern parts of Queensland.
In South Australia, flying foxes are reportedly dropping dead as a result of the extreme heat. The ABC reports that bats do not cope well in hot weather and that a Natural Resources SA ecologist expects the number of fatalities to rise.
Below is an image of a dead bat being bagged. SA residents are advised not to touch the animals themselves as they may be diseased.
If you’d like to see how One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts is engaging with the Senate inquiry into the resilience of electricity infrastructure in a warming world, the Adelaide Advertiser has his exchange with a scientist over “empirical evidence” that human activity has affected global temperatures.
A majority of Kmart, Target, Big W, Bunnings Warehouse and the Good Guys stores were claiming to have completely sold out of portable fans owing to extreme demand, with Target staff in Sydney telling the Guardian that “as soon as a pallet hits the floor, it’s gone within a couple of hours”.
“Every second customer wants a fan. I feel bad for them, because as soon as we get any, they’re gone.”
A Big W store in Sydney’s west said it had sold out a month ago, and had no new stock on the way. A store manager added that all retailers in the local area were sold out.
Maddie McCarthy, a student from Wollongong, has spent the past two days on the hunt, after her box fan “wasn’t cutting the mustard”. She was told by a number of major retailers that fans were effectively sold out in the Illawarra region. “I never heard anything about when they’d be back in stock.”
Calls to stores in Woollongong confirmed they were sold out, with store managers unable to remember the last time they were in stock. In Sydney Target staff said they occasionally received new shipments overnight but could not be sure. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that a Kmart in Bondi Junction was only expecting more stock “next summer”.
A spokesperson for The Good Guys said its stores were seeing “incredible demand in NSW as a result of the current heatwave”.
“As fast as we can get stock in, they are flying out the door. We have been bringing more stock into our stores to try and keep customers satisfied but we expect that this weekend’s heatwave will see an almost unprecedented level of demand.”
Residents in search of relief have taken to venting online, with one Reddit user complaining:
“Kmarts Ashfield, Burwood, Broadway have all run out of pedestal fans and are not getting any more in because they are now stocking up on winter items (would you believe?)”
Tens of thousands of South Australian homes were deliberately blacked out on Wednesday evening as a result of a heatwave. SA Power Networks initially put the number of affected households at 44,000, but later confirmed to the Adelaide Advertiser that it was as high as 90,000.
The front page of today’s Tiser suggests that SA residents might be a bit fed up.
The Australian Energy Market Operator ordered a second generator for Port Adelaide’s Pelican Point to provide support on Thursday afternoon, and called for backup for NW on Friday and Saturday.
The SA premier, Jay Weatherill, is blaming the national electricity market for the failure, stating that the Aemo could not be trusted to deliver reliably. But the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has criticised the state government for opening itself up to risk with its renewable energy policy.
The Advertiser has reported on the blame game here. A Senate inquiry under way in Canberra today will hear about how the national grid can cope with spiking demand and renewable generation – Guardian Australia’s press gallery team will be reporting back on that later on.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the continent, very different records are being broken in Western Australia. It’s the second-wettest day for Perth in recorded history, and could break the record for the coldest February morning.
NSW is bracing for catastrophic weather, with emergency services on standby and authorities pleading with the community to be vigilant.
The heatwave across the state, centred around the Hunter, will gradually worsen from Friday through to Sunday.
“The catastrophic conditions is something that has not occurred in NSW since 2013,” the police and emergency services minister, Troy Grant, said in a press conference this morning.
There is severe fire danger forecast for the ACT, and Grant said emergency services would be on high alert across the weekend. He encouraged people to postpone plans to visit national parks or areas where there was a fire risk, and suggested that “local infrastructure” such as “shopping centres [and] movie theatres” would offer respite from the heat”.
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It’s a day of extreme heat in many parts of Australia, with temperatures forecast to hit the mid-40s in parts of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. In NSW, police and health authorities, bracing for three days of 40-plus temperatures, have triggered their “heatwave action plan”.
On top of expeceted hospital admissions, there is a high chance of bushfires and potential power cuts. A heatwave cut electricity to 44,000 households in South Australia on Wednesday, prompting questions about Australia’s energy security as we continue what is likely to be our hottest summer ever.
I will be blogging today from the air-conditioned comfort of Guardian Australia’s office in Sydney, where the mercury had already hit 30.6C just after 10am. Tell me if it’s hot enough for you in the comments or on Twitter.
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