Bushfires: Weather outlook grim with hot gusts coming

For the first time, records for high heat and low rainfall have occurred simultaneously in the same calendar year.

Short- and long-term forecasts are grim for Australia’s embattled firefighters, with forecasts of hot, dry winds in coming days and annual data showing Australia enters 2020 after the hottest and driest year since records began.

Strong winds in NSW and Victoria are likely to pose a challenge to firefighters trying to contain or mop up bushfires, in a sign that weather threats from the worst bushfire season on record are far from over.

Temperatures across inland Victoria are predicted to reach the mid to high 30s, with 40C forecast for Mildura. Strong and squally winds of up to 70km/h on Friday will bring an elevated fire risk for northeastern Victoria.

The worrying picture for the next few days comes as the Bureau of Meteorology released its annual climate statement showing 2019 was both the hottest and driest on record in Australia.

It is the first time records for high heat and low rainfall have occurred simultaneously in the same calendar year since BOM began keeping records, its head of climate monitoring, Karl Braganza, said: “Australia's climate is warming … It was a year of significant drought (that) both started and ended with significant fires in the landscape across Australia.”

The climate statement shows Australia's climate is warming alarmingly, with an average mean temperature in 2019 of 1.52C above average, the warmest since reliable temperature records began in 1910. It surpasses the previous record in 2013 of 1.33C above average.

National average rainfall in 2019 was at a record low of 277mm, 11 per cent lower than a previous record low of 314mm during the Federation drought in 1902.

Dr Braganza said drought conditions, which “locked in” from 2017 across eastern Australia, ­culminated in only 60 per cent of annual rainfall in 2019. The year’s legacy of low soil moisture and low evaporative cooling had led to the current warm conditions, he said.

“January last year was the ­warmest month Australia has recorded, while a few weeks ago in December we saw the ­Australia-wide record hottest daily average maximum temperature broken multiple days in a row.”

Natural weather drivers such as the Indian Ocean Dipole have reduced rainfall in northern Aus­tralia, and the southern polar vortex caused drier conditions across the continent.

“The other key factor at play is that Australia's climate has warmed by more than a degree since 1910, which means very warm years like 2019 are now more likely to occur, while the trend in recent decades has been for drier winter and spring seasons in the south,” Dr Braganza said.

“It's important the community remains vigilant to the risk of more heat and fire days this summer.”

It was the warmest and driest year for NSW, with mean temperatures above average by 1.95C.

Western Australia experienced its warmest year and ­second-driest year on record. South Australia and the Northern Territory experienced the second-warmest year on record. Victoria had its fifth-warmest year, with the state’s mean temperature 1.05C above average. Queensland was 1.27C higher in its sixth-warmest year.