It’ll reach 50 degrees in parts of Western Australia today, so maybe stick a wet towel on your head while you read this story

UPDATE FIFTY degrees. Yes, 50. That was what the mercury threatened to reach in WA today. It was so close. But it didn’t quite make it.

TODAY’S forecast: stinkingly scorchingly unbelievably boiling hot. With a chance of showers later.

Several towns in the Pilbara region of northwest Western Australia were officially forecast to reach 49 degrees today.

It was thought that one of them would nudge 49.5, at which point the official temperature reported will be 50 degrees. But they didn’t quite get there.

If confirmed, then the 49.0 at #marblebar is the joint 9th highest Jan temp in WA, http://t.co/fUSSO0Vtu9 pic.twitter.com/UKZ1XNSWLd

— Neil Bennett (@cneilb) January 23, 2015

Marble Bar was the hottest place, reaching 49.0C at 3.12pm — the equal ninth highest January temperature.

“It’s very hot,” a Pilbara local by the name of Margaret told news.com.au this morning with typical bush understatement. “It’s a very dry heat today, with a very hot wind blowing. It’s 35 inside and that’s with the airconditioning on.”

The Iron Clad hotel in Marble Bar makes a rather good case for stopping in for a frosty one.

Margaret and her husband John run the holiday park in Marble Bar, a mining town in the Pilbara region. We call her at about 7:45 local time, when the official reading says it’s already 38 degrees outside. As we publish this story at 9am local time (midday eastern), it’s already 42.3.

Locals in Marble Bar are used to the heat. So far this year, 16 days have topped 40 degrees, while eight of those days topped 44. The highest temperature ever recorded in the town was 48.6 degrees in January 2008, a record which is under severe threat today.

TOLD YA! SUMMER SET TO BE A SCORCHER

So why the extremes? Well, it’s all because of a big, slow moving weather system called a heat low, says Neil Bennett, spokesperson for the Bureau of Meteorology in WA.

“There’s been a large area of air circulating around the Pilbara for a few days,” Mr Bennett explains. “It hasn’t really moved, it’s just been going round and round brining continental air to the Pilbara.”

This is the Bureau of Meteorology’s live temperature map just after 2pm (eastern time), Friday. Marble Bar is the 46 is in the top left corner.

When he says “continental air”, Neil Bennett means hot, dry desert air. For those of you on the east coast, it’s just like when we get our hot spells and extreme bushfire weather from the blistering norwesterlies that drag down that hot dry desert air. Only, in the northwest of WA, that scorching dry wind is a sou-easter.

Just how hot it gets today depends on if and when the sea breeze kicks in. Port Hedland , on the WA coast about three hours north of Marble Bar, is tipped to reach 48 degrees today. Yikes.

This is Karratha, about three hours from Port Hedland. Sea breezes will keep temps to a positively balmy 45 degrees today.

Meanwhile Broome, six or seven hours up the highway, is tipped to reach just 34 degrees.

“We’re completely different, it’s much more humid in the Kimberley, local weather observer Ray Hegarty says.

Back in Marble Bar, there’s not much going on today as even tough locals bunker down against the extreme heat. Margaret says she’s definitely not planning to leave the house.

“There’s no one on the streets today,” she says. “It’s a bit of a ghost town.”

It’s been hot enough to fry an egg throughout northern WA all week. Literally. Here’s a video which was just brought to our attention from news.com.au reader Lisa in WA’S Gascoyne region. Nice.

Post by Two Point Five Kids.

For the record, the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Australia were separate readings of 50 degrees at Oodnadatta in South Australia and at Mardie Station in WA. (There’s an official Bureau of Meteorology recording station on this property near Marble Bar).

Many of us were taught that Cloncurry in Queensland once recorded a reading of 53 degrees, which it did, but that reading has since been struck from the records by meteorologists, as it greatly exceeded nearby recordings and is deemed inaccurate.

We’ll keep you posted throughout the day on readings in Marble Bar but you can follow the hourly observations here.

Originally published as It’ll reach 50 degrees in parts of Western Australia today, so maybe stick a wet towel on your head while you read this story