The town hit 47.2C by mid afternoon, but locals are already well-versed in the art of staying cool
It might have been the hottest place in the country on Boxing Day, but when the tiny outback town of Birdsville hit 47.2C by mid-afternoon, locals were already well-versed in the art of staying cool.
Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist, Dean Narramore, said Birdsville was “looking like it’s going to be the hottest in the country,” even though places across the Northern Territory, Western Australia, South Australia and New South Wales had reached the mid 40s.
Birdsville, in outback Queensland bordering both SA and the NT, recorded a maximum of 47.2C at 3:53pm, making it the hottest place in Australia on Thursday, and the hottest temperature for December this year, nudging above the 47.1C recorded in Walpeup, in Victoria’s north-west, last Monday.
Yet it wasn’t even the highest temperature locals had experienced this year. On 25 January, the Bureau’s temperature gauge located at the local police station recorded 49.4C, just 0.1C shy of the town’s – and the state’s – all-time record of 49.5C in 1972.
Stephan Pursell, senior constable in charge at the Birdsville police station, said temperatures of 45-plus were not unusual for this time of year and locals were “pretty well versed” at dealing with the heat, with most staying indoors.
“Everybody gets their air conditioners pumping along and just stays inside and comfortable,” he said.
Birdsville had 110 residents according to the 2021 census, although Pursell said many were away visiting family or friends during the holiday period.
The 20 to 30 people still in town on Boxing Day would most likely be spending the day relaxing after family lunches for Christmas on Wednesday, he said. Although things were even quieter than usual thanks to a Telstra outage.
After the peak of the heat, he expected many would head down to the local billabong for a dip to cool down.
“There’s a bit of a local beach, as we call it, there at Pelican point. So, people will head down there and cool off.”
Narramore said temperatures on Thursday were six to ten degrees above average.
Birdsville has always been hot in December, with average temperatures in the mid to high 30s. But climate change had raised surface temperatures across the country by 1.5C since 1910, making heatwaves longer and more intense and increasing the number of extremely hot days.
Some relief was expected, with a cool change across much of the country, Narramore said. Birdsville’s forecast maximum on Friday was a full 10 degrees lower, at 37C.
The heat would rebuild again across the country, starting in Western Australia on Sunday and Monday, before spreading in the lead up to New Year’s Eve. Although top temperatures were unlikely to exceed the numbers recorded on Boxing Day, Narramore said.
Located on the Queensland border, an 18-hour drive from Brisbane, yet a mere 10 kilometres north of South Australia, Birdsville was once home to Australia’s only large-scale geothermal power station – a form of renewable power generated using the heat of water drawn from the Great Artesian Basin – which was ultimately replaced by solar and battery storage in 2018.
The town is also a popular tourist destination at other times of the year.
The outback town was famous for its annual horse race, and the historic track connecting it to Marree, in northern South Australia, which was originally an Aboriginal trading route that became a major stock route in the 1860s. Last year it claimed a world record for the largest number of people – 5,838 – dancing the Nutbush.
Most tourists passing through at this time of year were usually on their way to visit family around the country, Pursell said. Outback travellers usually understood the hot weather, he said, but locals did make sure they knew to bring enough water and food.
