If you’re doing anything active over the next four days, it’s best to do it early to avoid a very unpleasant muggy heat. Photo: ACT ESA
The heat is on, and not in the usual way for the Canberra region.
Local temperatures are rising close to the severe heat wave level, peaking on Monday (16 December) at a maximum of 38 degrees Celsius in the national capital. But it won’t be the dry heat Canberrans are accustomed to, even with north-westerly winds. Instead, it will be more of the muggy kind with a hint of the tropics that recently visited the national capital.
Yass is tipped to hit 39 degrees, while further inland, Gundagai and Wagga Wagga are forecast to break into the 40s. The best option could be a trip to the coast where most temperatures will be in the mid to late-20s.
Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist Helen Reid said the region faced a double whammy. It was going to be humid but without any relieving rain, at least not until Tuesday when a trough passes through.
“We are going to see some tropical moisture and humidity come through so that will give it an extra dimension of unpleasant,” she said.
“So it is the sense that, yes, 38, we can do that, but 38 and humidity isn’t what we would normally see.”
Ms Reid said there was a lot of tropical moisture in the north, and recently, that humidity stretched right across the country before being temporarily pushed back.
That humidity would start to drift back further south and into even into Victoria as well, ahead of the trough.
The Bureau has forecast more moisture in the atmosphere over spring and summer due to warming oceans but air flows were also involved.
“It’s not just the oceans around us,” Ms Reid said. “It’s how those winds are helping direct that tropical moisture, which we’ve seen building obviously through the build-up season across the top end of Australia.”
She said just Western Australia and pockets of Queensland would escape the heat wave that was building through the weekend and into Monday.
“It might even nudge into being classified as a severe heat wave for the ACT,” she said.
Ms Reid agreed this type of heat was very odd for this time of the year.
“We usually need to wait till about February for that humidity to have got any sense of continuity to it, but we have had that sense of Queensland coming to visit us for a couple of days because they enjoyed our visits over the winter, so now they’re having their weather come to us for the summer as well,” she said.
Relief should come on Tuesday when the change comes through, with the possibility of a shower or thunderstorm.
“But at this stage, it’s not looking like anything, particularly noticeable, but given that we are talking four or five days away, we will need to just keep an eye on how it all lines up and what time of day that trough line moves through bringing a little bit of relief.”
For those worrying about the Christmas menu, Ms Reid could not offer any assistance, saying her crystal ball needed another week to come into range.
“I know that there are lots of different places out there spruiking some Christmas Day forecast, but I always say this far out, just make sure you’ve got an option for the heat or rain and have a plan B just in case it all goes pear-shaped,” she said.
Her advice for coping over the next few days: use somebody else’s air conditioning.
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