One Wollongong suburb had its hottest September day and many sweated through an unseasonably warm night as a weekend of extreme summer-like weather broke records and saw total fire bans enforced.
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The mercury soared as much as 13 degrees above average in parts of the city on Saturday, with the daytime heat lingering well into the early hours of Sunday.
It was 30.7 degrees in Bellambi at 2am on Sunday, almost matching the coastal suburb’s Saturday maximum temperature of 31.1 degrees.
Despite the early-morning warmth, Bellambi’s official overnight low (recorded in the 24 hours to 9am on Sunday) was 20.6 degrees at 8.26pm on Saturday.
The minimum was still enough to deliver the suburb its warmest September night in 19 years of records – beating the previous high of 19.7 degrees in 2013.
Bellambi’s Saturday maximum of 31.1 degrees wasn’t a record-breaker, but the 34.4 degrees recorded at Albion Park did see the history books rewritten there.
Before Saturday, Albion Park’s hottest September day in 19 years of records was 34 degrees in 2006.
Elsewhere, Nowra beat its previous September daytime temperature record by three degrees when the mercury hit 36.3 mid-afternoon on Saturday.
Hot and windy conditions saw the fire danger in the Illawarra/Shoalhaven climb to severe on Saturday and very high on Sunday.
Total fire bans – the region’s first ahead of the official start to the statutory bushfire danger period on October 1 – were in effect on both days.
No rain has been recorded at Albion Park so far this month, with just 0.4mm registered in the Bellambi rain gauge.