Australia On Alert For Extreme Summer

By Jonathan Samuels, Australia Correspondent

Australians are being warned to brace themselves for an increase in heatwaves, cyclones, severe thunderstorms and ferocious bushfires as the country heads towards summer.

Australia has recently sweltered through record breaking weather and meteorologists say they are expecting more records to be broken after the country's hottest 12 months on record, including the hottest ever September, hottest ever day, and second warmest winter.

Tom Saunders, senior meteorologist at the Sky News Australia Weather Channel, says: "Through this summer we are expecting another hot one for Australia, above average temperatures throughout the country with at least one or two heatwaves through the southern states.

"We are expecting 11 to 14 tropical cyclones off our northern coastline, and we are expecting an above average number of severe thunderstorms for eastern and southern parts of Australia."

Australia's seas are said to be getting hotter

Warmer than average sea surface temperatures around Australia's coast are partly to blame, adding heat and moisture to the atmosphere.

"Our seas have been warming up over the past few decades and even in the past 12 months the sea surface temps off the west coast and south coast of Australia have been the highest on record," says Mr Saunders.

Last January, Australia recorded its hottest ever day - hitting a national average of 40.3 degrees Celsius, the hottest place being Oodnadatta in South Australia's far north which reached a blistering 47C.

While hot, dry, breezy days might be welcomed by tourists and those living near Australia's beaches, for many living inland such conditions raise the frightening prospect of fierce bushfires.

Windsor in New South Wales was affected by bushfires last month

The 2013 bushfire season began early in Australia and firefighters, many of them volunteers in rural areas, are preparing for a dangerous few months ahead.

"It's a wake up call to everybody living in bushfire prone areas," says commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons from the New South Wales Rural Fire Service.

"We've got a vegetation growth the likes of which we haven't seen for many decades and with the sign ahead for a continuing hot dry period as we lead into summer, it shapes up for a signal to a long hot difficult bushfire season."

Many in Australia know the pain such fires can cause. In what became known as 'Black Saturday' in February 2009 as many as 400 blazes killed 173 people, and injured 414.

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