Post date: Jan 18, 2013 12:47:57 PM
Temperatures break record for hottest day in Sydney Australia reaching nearly 46 Celsius, local media report.
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA (JANUARY 18, 2013) (NETWORK TEN) - People in Sydney, Australia baked in the hottest day on record on Friday (January 18), according to the Bureau of Meterorology.
With a new temperature record of 45.8 degrees Celsius (144.44 degrees Fahrenheit) at 2:55 pm local time (0355 GMT), scores headed to the city's beaches to escape the heat.Others looked for relief at the city water fountains.
"After the heat today, it has been absolutely unbearable. So, we jumped in there and we're nice and cool now," an unidentified young woman told Network Ten.
Office workers hid out in air-conditioned buildings but some tourists were hit hard by the soaring temperatures.
"We came from Germany and had five degrees below zero (23 degrees Fahrenheit) and the difference is almost 43 degrees," German tourist Hans Gass told Ten.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology the previous record was measured on January 14, 1939. The temperature then was recorded at 45.3 degrees Celsius (113.54 degrees Fahrenheit) in the central city.
At Sydney airport it was even hotter. Registering 46.6 degrees Celsius (155.88 degrees Fahrenheit), the airport, located in the south of the city, broke a record itself, local media said.
At the music event "Big Day Out" some festival-goers sat in the shade to escape the sun.
"I've sweated in places I haven't sweated before", an unidentified festival-goer told reporters.
St. John's Ambulance volunteers treated up to 200 people with heat related illnesses in the first four hours of the festival alone, Ten reported.
"A lot of people are suffering from dehydration today. They are feeling very lethargic, the temperatures are rising and just finding it quite difficult in general," Josh Emmanuelfrom St. John's Ambulance said.
Cooler temperatures are expected to arrive Friday evening and on Saturday (January 19, 2013) a maximum of 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) is forecast by theBureau of Meteorology.
Fire fighters are still battling dozens of fires in eastern and southern Australia sparked by the intense heat.
Australia, the world's driest inhabited continent, is particularly vulnerable to bushfires, fuelled each summer by extreme heat and by what scientists say is creeping climate shift blamed for hotter average temperatures globally.