The main feature of the weather across much of the nation this past week has been the high maximum temperatures over inland regions with readings of 46 degrees at places in the Kimberley regions of Western Australia. Some of this extreme heat heat has reached coastal resorts such as 44 degrees at Esperance and 42 degrees at Ceduna. The 44 degrees at Esperance was the hottest December day since 45.3 degrees on 17 December 2013. Other very high December temperatures at Esperance were in 1946, 1957, 1972, 2004, 2007 and 2009. Each one of those certainly led to heat wave conditions over most of Victoria with the highest temperatures reaching 43 degrees in Northern Victoria in just three days and in addition further heat waves for the next four weeks. Some thunderstorm activity is expected this week which will be very welcome as last few months since August has been the driest in North East Victoria and the Riverina since 2019. Only 16mms of rainfall has been recorded this month in Wangaratta, which is about a third of the December average. The mean minimum temperature of 10 degrees to date is the lowest in December since 9 degrees in 2001. The mean maximum temperature to date is 29.3 degrees and is close to the December normal.
