Grey nomads sweltering though some seriously warm temperatures in Victoria at the moment could be forgiven for thinking that it’s way too early to start even thinking about heading north.
Travellers who were staying anywhere near Melbourne last night can lay claim to have slept (or tried to sleep) through the warmest March night on record. The mercury hovered around 30 degrees for most of the night before a cool change this morning sent temperatures plunging to the low 20s.
The overnight temperature record is calculated by the weather bureau between 6pm and 9am, with Fairfax media reporting the previous Melbourne record was set in 2008 when the mercury did not fall below 26.9 degrees.
The March average minimum in Melbourne is 13 degrees.
The temperature climbed to 38.9 degrees in Melbourne’s CBD yesterday, but the hottest places in the state were the north-west towns of Hopetoun and Walpeup, which both hit 41.3 degrees. The record-breaking heatwave in Victoria’s far north will also have had caravanners and motorhomers cranking up the air conditioning or taking a few cooling dips
The Bureau of Meteorology said Mildura, Swan Hill and Echuca have all experienced 40-degree-plus temperatures for the past week.
“It’s one of the most severe March heatwaves we’ve seen, and northern Victoria is really copping the brunt of it,” Bureau of Meteorology forecaster, Rod Dickson, told Fairfax media. “They’ve had four to five consecutive days above 40 degrees. We haven’t seen such a severe heatwave since March 2008.”
* How are you coping with this sort of temperature at night? Or are you somewhere cooler at the moment? Comment below.
