Bureau of Meteorology says stubborn high pressure system will create hot and dry conditions over weekend and next week
Firefighters in New South Wales and Queensland are gearing up for a week of unseasonably warm weather as they continue to battle blazes across the two states.
Conditions have eased since the strong winds earlier this week fanned more than 130 fires across Queensland and New South Wales, but there are still 70 fires still burning in Queensland and 45 south of the border in NSW.
Jonathan How, a forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology, told Guardian Australia it would be a very warm weekend across north-east New South Wales and south-east Queensland, and those conditions would extend into next week.
“The main reason we are seeing these very warm conditions is we have a very stubborn high pressure system sitting over the centre of the continent and so that is basically preventing any cooler conditions from making it any further north.”
He said there would be clear skies and temperatures between six and 10 degrees Celsius above average for this time of year on the weekend, and up to 12 degrees above average next week.
Most of the fire sites would experience temperatures in the high 20s and low 30s, he said.Conditions have eased since the strong winds earlier this week fanned more than 130 fires across Queensland and New South Wales, but there are still 70 fires still burning in Queensland and 45 south of the border in NSW.
Jonathan How, a forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology, told Guardian Australia it would be a very warm weekend across north-east New South Wales and south-east Queensland, and those conditions would extend into next week.
“The main reason we are seeing these very warm conditions is we have a very stubborn high pressure system sitting over the centre of the continent and so that is basically preventing any cooler conditions from making it any further north.”
He said there would be clear skies and temperatures between six and 10 degrees Celsius above average for this time of year on the weekend, and up to 12 degrees above average next week.
“That’s going to lead to high to very high fire dangers, which will keep conditions quite challenging for fighting the fires.
“The one saviour for the firefighters is the winds aren’t as strong as what we saw last week.”
But winds could pick up later in the week when a cold front comes through on Thursday. He said there was no forecast for rain in the fire-affected areas in the next week.
John Bolger, acting commissioner for the Queensland Fire and Emergency Service, said a westerly wind change on Friday lowered the humidity and increased the temperature, meaning the 600 firefighters and 15 fire trucks in the field would be busy over the weekend.
“Peregian fires are pretty much contained. We did have a flare-up this afternoon but we were able to bomb that with helicopters,” he said.
“Our area of concern this weekend, among others around the state, is the Sarabah fires,” he said.
NSW Rural Fire Service inspector Ben Shepherd told Guardian Australia firefighters had been dealing with similar conditions for a few months.
“We’ve been dealing with above average temperatures and a very dry landscape for a number of months,” he said.
The difference for next week is the need to continue to fight the fires already ablaze. Of the 45 fires in the state, 12 have yet to be contained. A total of 400 firefighters will be kept in the field and at the height of the fires there were almost 1,000.
“It might not be as hot and windy as it was last Friday; we didn’t have the fires in the landscape at the time. So now we’re dealing with hundreds and thousands of hectares that are alight, and hundreds of kilometres of perimeters of fires that are alight,” he said.
“That, moving into next week, doesn’t bode well, and that’s why we are encouraging everyone to ensure their properties are prepared, regardless of whether you’re near these fires, or bushfire prone land.
“The landscape is so incredibly dry at the moment. We’re seeing fire behaviour that we would typically see in the middle of summer and that is obviously difficult for firefighters to control.”
Shepherd said people should make sure they had a plan in the event of a fire, and prepare by reducing fire risk by cleaning leaves from gutters, mowing lawns, trimming branches, and removing combustibles from the sides of houses.
The above-average spring temperatures are likely to continue over spring. Bom researchers reported last week in The Conversation that there could be months of above-average temperatures and below-average rainfall in large parts of NSW and Queensland as a result of record warm temperatures above Antarctica.
The Actuaries Institute’s quarterly climate index released this week also showed autumn 2019 ranked as the second-highest for extreme temperatures since the index started in 1981.
The Actuaries Institute chief executive, Elayne Grace, said there was a “growing urgency” to understand the occurrence of extremes in climate and the impacts of climate change on businesses and communities.
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