The temperature today is hot hot HOT!

[Freuds_Cat]

Sorry to hear about your Central Heating Chris. Thats as bad as being here without an Aircon.

What Dex was saying about the animals is true. Check out this little guy. He is only a young one. Possum that is. Came down onto my Sons Cubby house looking for a drink. These guys are usually pretty shy and as you can see from his eyes, they are night animals. Very rare to see them during the day. Especially high noon. We left him some water and a bowl of bread soaked in water. Its night now and he was out there about an hour ago so he seem to be OK.  Got a lot of heat to come yet though 

[Barklessdog]

Sorry to hear about your Central Heating Chris. Thats as bad as being here without an Aircon.

What Dex was saying about the animals is true. Check out this little guy. He is only a young one. Possum that is. Came down onto my Sons Cubby house looking for a drink. These guys are usually pretty shy and as you can see from his eyes, they are night animals. Very rare to see them during the day. Especially high noon. We left him some water and a bowl of bread soaked in water. Its night now and he was out there about an hour ago so he seem to be OK.  Got a lot of heat to come yet though 

That is so friggin cool, our possums are the huge ugly rat like creatures with mangey fur

[Freuds_Cat]

That little guy still has some of his baby fluff on his hind quarter and is still quite dark. They turn a mottled grey as they get older.

Local paper headlines:

Record overnight temperature during Adelaide heatwave

SOUTH Australia will suffer six consecutive days of 40C-plus temperatures in the hottest such stretch in a century - and yesterday the mercury has topped 45C.

Tomorrow is the Big Day out (Kinda like Lola Palooza) here. Glad I'm not going.

[Darrol]

Kind of feel bad for my friend now cause he is leaving tonight for Austrailia.

[Freuds_Cat]

3 days in a row over 42C (108 F)


From the Newspaper:

A SIGNIFICANTLY higher than average number of sudden deaths have occurred across Adelaide on the third consecutive day of 42 C-plus temperatures.

Since midnight, police have attended deaths at 18 separate addresses across the metropolitan area.

Most of the people who died have been elderly.

Police could not confirm the deaths were heat-related - however, they did say the number of deaths was "significantly higher" than average.

Earlier, South Australian Health said at least 60 people have already ended up in emergency departments across the state with heat-related conditions.

Heat to continue

Respite is still at least a week away in South Australia, where the state's electricity supply was cut in rolling blackouts amid record demand.

Yesterday's temperature in Adelaide reached 43.4C at 3.10pm after an overnight minimum of 33.9C at 12.30am, which surpassed the previous record of 33.5C on January 24, 1982.

Daytime temperatures are forecast to remain at 38C or above for the next seven days, before rising to 40C again next Thursday.  Experts say Adelaide could match or exceed last year's record heatwave of 15 days of temperatures above 35C.

Rail workers toiled through the night to prepare buckled tracks for morning commuters and perishable food was ruined in supermarkets.

[uwe]

Elderly people die during hot summers in Germany too - they just don't drink enough liquids and dehydrate. It happens every year. In winter they die from colds turning into pneumonia, in summer they don't wake up from sleep for dehydration. (Flash thought: Dave, please always carry a water bottle with you!)

I marvel at that pic of buckled tracks. I try to rationalize that 45 degrees centigrades should not be able to warp metal, but of course that is the shade temperature and the glaring sun is so much hotter. Still. Is it a quality issue of the used metal?

Finally, my inquisitve mind asks: Is that koala tame and kept as a pet?

Be safe and cool!

Uwe

[Barklessdog]

That's just horrible. In Chicago we had a bad summer not long ago with record heat & drought that took a lot of elderly people's lives.

Koalas are yummy when filled with chocolate though

[Freuds_Cat]

Finally, my inquisitve mind asks: Is that koala tame and kept as a pet?

Uwe

Koalas do not make for very good pets and are hard to keep. Apart from that its next to impossible to get a licence to be able to do so.

There are lots of them here. I would bet my favourite Cattle dog that its just a hot young Koala. Too small to be an adult.


When I lived in London in the early 90's I remember a lot of elderly deaths due to an extended cold period.

Here is what happens when you try and run a mile long Iron ore train over tracks that have done the same thing as the ones above.



This happened up in Northern Western Australia today.

Some kind of irony (oops0  happening when an Iron ore train derails on Iron rails pulled by an Iron Horse. 

[Dave W]

That koala's facial expression looks a lot like mine before I've had my first cup of coffee.

[Darrol]

Koalas are yummy when filled with chocolate though

Oh I love those cookies and my friend just found a store that sells them too so we had a few when we went to Disneyland earlier this week.

My friend said it was pretty nice in Sydney when I talked to him a bit last night.

[Barklessdog]

That koala's facial expression looks a lot like mine before I've had my first cup of coffee.

After?

[Dave W]

Well, except for the collar, that's pretty close. 

[Freuds_Cat]

Update:

Adelaide suffered six consecutive days of 40C (104F) plus temperatures with a change that brought 35C (95F). Today back up to 43C (110F) and 42 (107F) forecast for tomorrow.

9 days straight above 35C (95F). A lot of animals have died. The morgues are full (I know I work near one), and Fruit and vegetable crops have been scorched to the point of being unsale-able. One of our biggest exports is our wine industry and right now it is harvest time. Things don't look very good.

Rolling power blackouts to thousands of homes for over a week now has been blamed for a lot of elderly deaths.


Yesterday's Temperature
Maximum:    Marree, SA    47.0°C (116.6F)  (small town north of Adelaide)

[Freuds_Cat]

OK so today we not only have the heat but we have the wind 

Townships under ember attack as fires rage
Fires are raging across Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales, with tens of thousands of fire fighters on stand-by across all three states.



We drove into the nearest big town near us (Mt Barker) and as we drove through each smaller town to get there it was like a Firemans version of a military red alert.  Every person who is a member of the Fire services was not just on call but actually at the stations with the trucks ready to go.

Man it is just disgusting out there.


More news:

Wind gusts of up to 90 kilometres per hour are being experienced, along with temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius.
It was already 37C in Adelaide at 9:00am ACDT.
More than 10,000 firefighters and 11 water bombers are on stand-by in strategic positions around the state.
One water bomber has already been sent to help contain a forest fire at Nangwarry near Mount Gambier.
National parks at Mount Lofty and on the Fleurieu Peninsula are closed because of the bushfire threat, and Monarto Zoo is also closed.

I live in the Mt Lofty ranges (Adelaide Hills) right near Monarto, which is a large open area zoo dedicated to endangered African animals.

[Freuds_Cat]

Small Riverland town of Cobdogla, a few hundred Kms East of me reached  46.3C (115F) a few hours ago.