Australia experiences hottest ever January: weather bureau

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia experienced its hottest January on record this year, with the dry continent heating up as part of the global warming process, the bureau of meteorology said Friday.

Temperatures rose by between 1.0 and 2.0 degrees in most parts of the country, with the national average hitting 29.2 degrees Celsius (84 Fahrenheit) for the summer month, said the bureau’s head of climate analysis, David Jones.


“It’s a remarkable number certainly. Averaging, as we did across the whole country 1.3 degrees above average is the highest temperature we’ve seen in our history of records for Australia in January,” he told AFP.

Jones said it was a steady, persistent warmth rather than a heatwave which saw Australia heat up everywhere except in parts of northeastern Queensland state, where flooding was widespread.

AFP