Australia Reels Under Sweltering Heat Amid Bushfire Threats
NDTV
Australia faces a high-risk bushfire season as it experiences an El Nino weather event, recently announced, which is typically associated with extreme events like wildfires, cyclones and droughts.
Australia's southeast on Sunday sweltered in a heat wave that raised the risk of bushfires and prompted authorities to issue fire bans for large swaths of New South Wales state.
The nation's weather forecaster said temperatures would be up to 12 degrees Celsius (53.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above average in some areas, with Sydney, capital of Australia's most populous state New South Wales, set to hit 36C (96.8F).
At Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport, the temperature was already 28C (82.4F) at 10 a.m. (2300 GMT), more than five degrees above the September mean maximum temperature, according to forecaster data.
