Sydney is bracing for yet another scorching day, with some northern suburbs already soaring to 32C by 7.30am.
Temperatures are tipped to exceed 40C in the city’s west, prompting total fire bans declared for three regions, including Sydney.
The city will reach 36C while Penrith and Richmond sizzle at 42C, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
The eastern suburbs will reach around 34C.
After a very sticky morning, a southerly cool change moving along the state’s south coast is predicted to bring relief during the day as it tracks north.
Sydney is bracing for yet another scorching day, with some northern suburbs already soaring to 32C by 7.30am
Temperatures are tipped to exceed 40C in the city’s west, prompting total fire bans declared for three regions, including Sydney
The southerly change is heading north and should hit Sydney’s coast between 1pm and 2pm before heading to the city’s south.
Temperatures will drop at least 10 degrees, a forecaster from the BOM said.
At 8am on Wednesday the southerly was at Ulladulla and is tracking north, he said.
NSW paramedics are bracing for a busy day after responding to 70 heat-related incidents on Tuesday alone.
Authorities have warned residents, particularly those aged 60 and over, to stay out of direct sunlight, drink plenty of water and never leave children or pets in cars.
The NSW RFS has issued total fire bans for the Greater Sydney Region, The Hunter Region and North Western NSW, with the three areas facing severe fire danger ratings.
‘It’s pretty hot and dry right around different parts of the state, but that’s where the concentration of the worst weather is today,’ RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told the Nine Network on Wednesday.
‘We have got 30 fires that we still haven’t got contained; we are dealing with more than 80 fires around NSW at the moment.’
The city will reach 36C while Penrith and Richmond sizzle at 42C, according to the Bureau of Meteorology
The heat has also prompted electricity provider Ausgrid to cancel planned maintenance outages on the Central Coast and Hunter region for Wednesday.
The state’s chief scientist has warned NSW could be plunged into chaos in the event of a large-scale ‘black system’ power outage, similar to the one that debilitated South Australia last year.
While finding it was highly unlikely NSW would fall victim to a blackout of that scale, a report released by the Energy Security Taskforce has found NSW was nevertheless ill-prepared.
Taskforce chair and chief scientist Mary O’Kane says the state government needs to adopt a more proactive approach to managing short- and medium-term risks, including during prolonged periods of extreme heat.
After a very sticky morning, a southerly cool change moving along the state’s south coast is predicted to bring relief during the day as it tracks north
‘The government must be alive to risks over coming years so that it can manage emerging risks proactively when needed,’ Prof O’Kane said in a statement.
For Sydneysiders, the report found up to 10,000 people on underground trains would need to be evacuated in the event the state fell victim to an outage.
Meanwhile, public hospitals only have six hours worth of fuel in their back-up diesel generators, the report released on Tuesday, found.
‘As we saw in the South Australian event, sometimes these can go on for a while and there is reason to think it would be quite some time in a black event like that for Sydney to come back up,’ Ms O’Kane told ABC Radio on Wednesday.
The report found the system was vulnerable in times of extreme weather events and made nine recommendations to shore it up.
‘The next decade will be a period of transition and disruption for the National Energy Market, and with that comes opportunities for innovation to increase the future reliability and security of the state’s electricity system,’ Prof O’Kane said.