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Friday, February 6, 2026

Climate 4 of 5 Australia heat 50c [122f] 6 days already- life in "a fanforced oven"- ABC NEWS Feb 1 short report w transcript at Heating Planet blog

Australians should brace for longer and more frequent heatwaves, with climate scientists warning that 50-degree [122 F] days are now a permanent reality. This year's extreme temperatures have broken records in three states, signalling a shift towards what was once a rare event. Meteorologist Dr Adam Morgan explores the implications of these 50-degree summers for Australia READ & WATCH Australians to experience more 50 C [122F] days as heatwaves intensify, experts say: ABC is an Australian public broadcast service***

TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, Zoe, how you going? Emily, Lucas, back to school in Mildura, Victoria in 47° heat. I get really exhausted [music] cuz I'll run around playing chasey out there. Outside play ends after morning recess. Kids will continue to play and play and play and not regulate themselves. We're just more careful about what the kids are doing when they're outside. Yep. Hands out. 

Mildura only had six days over 45c [113f] in the second half of last century. There have been six already this year. It's just one of more than 20 places that broke alltime temperature records this week. Port Augusta hit 50°. That's never happened that far south before. We've never really seen forecasts of 50c [122f] before. maybe once or twice, but certainly not over multiple days during the same event. More and more we're going to see those extremes coming down into southeastern Australia. 

That's really becoming unlivable in those areas. Humans just aren't built to cope with those temperatures. It's pretty scary. Most of even a young healthy adult's body mechanisms for dissipating heat stop working. The blood flow will move away from the inside of your body to try and keep your skin cool and you'll effectively cook from the inside out. Nearly 400 people died in Victoria's 2009 heatwave. Places have air conditioning, but not everybody can turn it on or can afford to use it. Like Melinda Burn, she's lived in a caravan in Thagam Minda since losing her house to floods last year. This week it hit 48.5. It's like standing in front of a fanforced oven. The heat often brings power outages, cutting out not just air conditioning, but phone service as well. 

When you've got, you know, blistering hot days, no power, no way of contacting the hospital if you need them. You know, it it life life gets a little bit scary. 

That kind of heat affects everything. 

We could see up to a $400 billion per year hit on the economy through lost work time. Our cattle are just more designed for European conditions and we'll have changing diseases deni and malaria potentially coming further south. So what's happening? [music] The weather pattern last week was fairly typical for extreme heat and broadly similar to that on Black Saturday in 2009. [music] A high over the Tasmin Sea and an approaching cool change from the bite. Even a tropical cyclone over northwest WA helping to reinforce the heat wave by injecting high pressure air down towards the southeast. What made Black Saturday so severe was unique conditions. 

Extremely hot air with an exceptionally dry landscape at the end of the Millennium Drought and ferocious northerly winds. Last week we broke Black Saturday [music] records without that same combination of factors. What's changed is the climate. My kids have had almost twice as many days over 43 as my father did in his entire life. The world's three hottest years have been 2023, 2024, and 2025. And each successive heat wave becomes just that little bit more intense. They're hitting this 50° plus 50° mark, and they'll only continue to get worse. Almost 20 years into my career as a meteorologist, I'm now questioning the limits of what I thought possible. Forecasting temperatures of 50 and above will have psychological effects on us all. In the same way that a forecast of 29 seems like a pleasant afternoon, but a forecast of 30 has us heading to the beach. How will we perceive the difference between a forecast of 49 and 50? What actions will we take? What things will we do differently? 50° is a very confronting temperature. I look at that global temperature and hope that we can keep it down because every tenth of a degree matters. We've had Black Summer. We've had the 2009 [music] bushfires and heat waves in Victoria. We've had multiple other extreme weather [music] events that have sparked some change and some good change. None of these events have done enough.
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[KE: Everything scientists predicted about global warming/ climate change since the 1970s is coming true, only faster]
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