Monday, January 06, 2014

Australia's Hottest Ever Year

This the heat map for 2013 - Australia's hottest year on record. I can't find a single dot of blue (cold) and there's barely an area of average temperature.


The warm temperature were consistent across the country with each location experiencing either a record heat, or something "very much above average". Of course, there is the occasional cold day, but these are few and far between. Also, they are not as cold as the hot days are hot. Here is each day of 2013, compared to average.


So to summarise, Australia set 6 records in the first week of the year, added a new hot colour to the weather map, saw Sydney hit 46°C, had the hottest month ever, saw some high temperatures in what was called the Angry Summer, saw the hottest September turn into the hottest spring, which included an unusually early bushfire.

On reflection it's not a huge surprise that it turned out to be the hottest year. Perhaps it's time to act on global warming.

UPDATE: The Climate Council and Climate Institute have each produced infogrphics about the various records that have been set in Australia this past year.

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