The first Friday of summer has given New South Wales a taste of what could be Australia’s hottest summer on record.<\/p>\n
A grass fire at Beni, near Dubbo, has now been downgraded after hitting an emergency-level warning, but it is not yet contained.<\/p>\n
The Golden Highway has been closed in both directions.<\/p>\n
The Rural Fire Service’s Ben Shepherd said a number of isolated rural properties were still under threat from the Beni blaze, with anyone in the area advised to shelter in place.<\/p>\n
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At 6pm, a fire burning at Bulahdelah on the state’s Mid North Coast which was initially under an emergency level warning had been downgraded to watch and act.<\/p>\n
The Bulahdelah blaze shut the Pacific Highway earlier, but it has since reopened with one lane in both directions.<\/p>\n
Mr Shepherd earlier said firefighters were battling strong winds and “trying conditions”.<\/p>\n
“We’re seeing some unbelievable fire conditions on that fireground at the moment that is resulting in properties coming under threat,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve seen a couple of grassfires and crop fires that have sprung up that [have] taken that attention of aircraft and crews, so it is proving to be a bit of a problematic afternoon.<\/p>\n
“We are expecting conditions to deteriorate into tomorrow.”<\/p>\n
The fire at Dubbo closed the Golden Highway in both directions. (Supplied: Live Traffic NSW)<\/p>\n
Mr Shepherd said resources were being stretched to manage about 60 fires across the state.<\/p>\n
“We’re trying to limit the impact on homes and people, but we need to also look at that economic impact for a lot of these farmers where these fires are burning,” he said.<\/p>\n
He said the Bulahdelah fire was unlikely to be contained by Friday night, with the Pacific Highway expected to remain closed into Saturday.<\/p>\n
Heatwave warning<\/p>\n
Authorities have also issued severe to extreme heatwave warnings for large parts of the state.<\/p>\n
Sydney’s temperature had climbed to 37.8 degrees Celsius by 1pm on Friday, exceeding the Bureau of Meteorology’s (BOM) forecast of 35C and making it the city’s hottest day since January 2024.<\/p>\n
A sea-breeze has now reached the Observatory Hill station, meaning that could be the eventual maximum temperature for today.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Zoe and Briana have been paddle boarding at Lake Parramatta as the weather heats up. (ABC News: Jack Ailwood)<\/p>\n
Parts of Western Sydney bore the brunt of the heat, with paddleboarders Zoe and Brianna among those cooling off at Parramatta Lake on Friday.<\/p>\n
“It’s always a trek to get out to the beaches,” Brianna noted, saying those from inland suburbs were fans of the Parramatta swimming spot or any local pools.<\/p>\n
Workers in Gregory Hill in Sydney\u2019s south-west covered up from the elements, with the temperature forecast to hit 39C.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Workers at a construction site in Gregory Hills tried to keep cool. (ABC News: Greg Bigelow)<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, at Cronulla Beach, Mary-Anne Kent said she enjoyed keeping active whatever the weather.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m a bit of a lizard so it doesn\u2019t really worry me,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019ve gotten up, and I\u2019ve done yoga, and I\u2019m just about to go for an hour walk, then I\u2019ll probably go for a swim.<\/p>\n
“I don’t sit inside with the air conditioning, I’d rather be outside and living life.”<\/p>\n
Tom Avery, too, said he was not bothered by the heat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love it, I\u2019ve always loved it,” he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very comfortable in it.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Swimmers flocked to Cronulla Beach to cool down. (ABC News: Tony Ibrahim)<\/p>\n
How hot will it get?<\/p>\n
Across the state, Bellambi, in the Illawarra region, recorded its hottest December day in two years, reaching 36.7C by 1pm.<\/p>\n
Albion Park’s 37.9C was 12 degrees above the December average, and the area’s hottest day since January.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
People cooled down at Lake Parramatta, as authorities warn of a heatwave forecast for Sydney and large parts of NSW.\u00a0 (ABC News: Jack Ailwood)<\/p>\n
BOM senior meteorologist Sarah Scully said the hot weather would be at its peak on Saturday, before a cooler change on Sunday.<\/p>\n
“It’s also going to be very, very windy [on Saturday] so we will have a fire weather warning current for much of eastern and inland and northern parts of New South Wales,” she told ABC News.<\/p>\n
“There’s also a risk of a thunderstorm but not a lot of rainfall is expected with any storms that do form, which does create a concern with regards to dry lightning.”<\/p>\n
Saturday will see temperatures up to 14C above average in NSW.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Sydney is forecast to reach 37C, which after today\u2019s 38C will become the first time in five years Sydney has recorded two consecutive days above 35C.<\/p>\n
It might be a little premature to look forward to a southerly change, but modelling shows the following timing from south to north:<\/p>\n
Bermagui, 11pm on Saturday.Batemans Bay, 2am on Sunday.Wollongong, 5am on Sunday.Sydney, 7am on Sunday.Newcastle, 9am on Sunday.Mid North Coast on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n
A reprieve from the heat is expected on Sunday, with inland temperatures expected to drop to the mid to high 20s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first Friday of summer has given New South Wales a taste of what could be Australia’s hottest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,184356,184359,138023,44,184354,5847,178080,2876,184355,182874,184361,45232,184360,13739,184358,184357],"class_list":["post-329125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-extreme-heatwave-forecast","tag-bom-weather","tag-heatwave-warning","tag-news","tag-nsw-heatwave","tag-nsw-news","tag-observatory-hill-station","tag-summer","tag-sydney-heatwave","tag-sydney-news","tag-sydney-summer","tag-sydney-weather","tag-sydney-weather-forecast","tag-weather-forecast","tag-weather-radar","tag-weather-tomorrow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}