BLAZING HEAT IN AUSTRALIA

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22242, 30 January 1947, Page 5

BLAZING HEAT IN AUSTRALIA

PARCHED COUNTRYSIDE; DYING STOCK SYDNEY SUFFERS FROM FREAK HUMIDITY (10.30 a.m.) SYDNEY, January 30. The scorched inland areas of New South Wales, with temperatures soaring well above the century, arc now being seared by blistering westerly gales and choked by stifling dust storms. More -than 20 outback towns from the Murray River to the Queensland border report blazing heat to-day, with a parched countryside and dying stock. In Sydney the uncomfortably clammy conditions are due to a freak humidity, which has hovered in the nineties all day. Moisture is forming in a dense fog, which blankets some harbourside areas. Broken Hill has had 15 days with a temperature of over 100 degrees and the whole town is under a pall of dust blown by fierce winds. Canowindra reports 14 days with a temperature of between 100 and 111 degrees. Mosquitoes, flies and dust add to the discomfort and the town has exhausted its beer supplies. Walgctt’s temperature has been near 110 degrees for six days. The country is bare of feed and the river Namoi is a string of small waterholes.

These are a few reports, all of which are distressingly similar. It was estimated to-day that the droughts in New South Wales since last July have cost the export trade nearly 1,000,000 lambs. The monsoonal rains needed for a good beef season in Queensland and Northern Territory are six weeks overdue. A spark from a steamroller in the Mount Cole State Forest, Victoria,

started a fire which swept 3000 acres of trees and grasslands. The flames sometimes travelled at 80 miles an hour, but were checked to-day by a force of 300 men.

Visitors to the Cotter River, near Canberra, are catching trout with their hands because the prolonged heatwave is warming even the deepest pools and forcing the gasping fish to the surface.