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Weather thread for November heatwave

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Knobby22 said:
Looked it up. Record for Renmark is 48 which occurred 9th February 2009.
That would kill you pretty quick.
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I have been out on days where if you throw and old style thermometer on the sand in direct sunlight, it would crack/burst from the heat.

We used to know it was a hot day in the Riverland when the tar starts bubbling out of the road
 
Knobby22 said:
Looked it up. Record for Renmark is 48 which occurred 9th February 2009.
That would kill you pretty quick.
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Yeh, we had a 47 here that day (although my records show it as the 7th Feb?). We wont get there today but it's been pretty awful anyway, my poor old vegie garden is under shadecloth this time of year but I think I should have picked my rhubarb a few days ago, it wasn't looking well about an hour ago
 
prawn_86 said:
We used to know it was a hot day in the Riverland when the tar starts bubbling out of the road
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Then there were the days as a kid we'd be cutting apricots and a fresh lot of fruit was bought into the shed and the dip-tins were that hot they'd burn your hands... not to mention the apricots that were like jam...
 
Firefighters in South Australia face a nervous wait this evening.

Dry(ish) thunderstorms in conjunction with extreme temperatures are a very nasty combination.
 
It's certainly hot in SA. Adelaide hit 45 today, with the forecast for 45 again tomorrow and 46 on Thursday. That's seriously hot by any measure.

According to BOM data, highest temperatures by state today:

SA = 46
Vic = 45
Tas = 40

So very hot across 3 states. No records so far as I'm aware, but certainly very hot. Let's hope there's no fires.....
 
Keith in SA's Southeast got to 47.

An unusual location to record the state's highest daily temp, but that's the nature of this heatwave. It's hotter in the south of the state than it is in the north.
 

Strahan Tassie West Coast new record today 38 degrees , records also set at Mount Read (Tas ) 30.4 c and Scotts Peak (Tas) 38.4 c . Also bitumen has melted on parts of the Midlands Highway . :1zhelp:
Report below from WZ
www.weatherzone.com.au/news/records-tumble-as-mercury-rises-in-tasmania/26407
 
Yes, very hot in the south.

Melbourne was 45 yesterday, and you forget how hot that really is until it comes around. We are supposed to have the same for the rest of the week, the worst day being on Friday.

Those tennis players at the Australian Open are getting the real extent of an Australian Summer.
 
Power supply was seriously stretched in Vic & SA today and will be again tomorrow.

I'm not going to say there will be blackouts, but I sure wouldn't be willing to bet that there won't be problems that's for sure. There's a huge load on the system in both states and very little spare generating capacity available if something goes wrong (eg breakdown at a power station).

A 200MW generating unit in SA that was out of service today has now been fixed and is running. That's the good news. But the increase in load tomorrow compared to today is expected to be considerably more than 200 MW - that's the bad news. Meanwhile a 550 MW unit in Vic remains out of service.

The 240 MW Playford B power station (SA) being closed (well, it's officially mothballed not closed as such, but it's the same thing in practice in terms of power supply tomorrow) obviously isn't helping either.

Forecast load in Vic tomorrow = 10,392 MW versus 9,867 MW available generation. In SA it's 3,207 demand versus 3,307 supply now that the 200 MW unit is back in service. That compares to around 1400 MW load on a mild day in SA and around 6000 MW in Vic. So it's a huge increase in demand on the system.

So Vic (and SA if even the slightest problem occurs) is dependent on supply from NSW and Tas to keep the lights (or more to the point, air-conditioners) on. There's enough, just, provided that nothing breaks down. But if a big generating unit breaks down in Vic or SA, or something goes wrong with transmission and cuts off supply from NSW or Tas then there's basically nothing available to cover such a loss.

NSW and Tas both have sufficient capacity up and running to maintain supply into Vic to the limit of the transmission lines. But the transmission limit is the issue - putting an extra unit or three online in Tas wouldn't help since we can't send any more to Vic than is already being done. Same with NSW (and indirectly Qld which is electrically connected to NSW and which also has spare capacity available).
 
Adelaide will likely top out at 44 or 45 today.

Still scorching hot but the record of 46.1 is unlikely to be broken.
 
Beautiful up here in Townsville....we have not even had the air conditioner on for the past two nights.

This is the place to be.
 
sptrawler said:
I should have posed the question on this thread.
What would have happened if Labor had bought Hazelwood Power Station and closed it down, due to its carbon emmissions?
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Blackouts for sure. No question about it.

Hazelwood has actually been the hardest running power station in Vic during the heatwave in terms of actual production versus its' design capability.

Whilst Loy Yang A is bigger (2200 MW) and today has produced more power (around 1850 MW most of the time), it has capacity loss due to technical problems whereas Hazelwood is actually running significantly above it's design limit, pushing out over 1700 MW at times (versus its' original design limit of 1600 MW). So Hazelwood was the number 1 source of electricity in Vic yesterday and is running a close second today.

Sure, it's old and not as efficient as a modern plant but it's working extremely well at the moment that is undeniable. And without it, the lights would have gone out - no ifs, buts or maybes there.

Most of the gas-fired plants in Vic have significant capacity loss due to the heat and it's much the same in SA with a couple of exceptions. Meanwhile Hazelwood has simply kept going.

Overall, load today was slightly higher than yesterday but the system coped due to the 200MW unit at Torrens Island (Adelaide metro area) being back fully operational. The 550 MW unit at Loy Yang (Vic) which was out of service also was restarted today but with a reduced capacity of 350 MW (not sure exactly why but presumably they still have some problems with it). Also the very old (opened 1958) plant at Morwell (Vic) which hasn't been operating much for the past 18 months put about 44 MW into the system this afternoon (it has a peak capacity of 190 MW). Also generation from wind was higher today than yesterday as well. Put all that together and the system coped fairly easily.

Load tomorrow looks to be about the same in Vic and slightly lower in SA. There's still no guarantees about system reliability however since it's still a very high demand and could become a problem if anything goes wrong.

Tomorrow - Melbourne 44, Adelaide 42, Canberra 41, Hobart 38 so still very hot and the heat has spread further too (Hobart's maximum today was only 22).
 
Ferret said:
Really? This is a weather thread. Do we need to make it about politics? ASF has too many of those already.
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It could be interpreted in two possible ways.

1. Effect on the temperature due to CO2 emissions etc. That is very clearly a political point.

2. Technical question about electricity supply during the heatwave if the power station being referred to had not being operating today. I see that as an engineering question, albeit one prompted by a political policy.

I've answered the question from an engineering perspective and ignored the political aspect of it. In doing so I note that power supply is one of the significant potential issues associated with the current weather, since there is a credible threat and it did come uncomfortably close on Wednesday. The other more serious issues are obviously things like fires, people having medical problems and so on but losing the power supply wouldn't be helpful that's for sure.
 
Prawn from the riverland will probably be enjoying this heat, but I have had enough.
It saps your energy. At least it is the last day of it.
As for the poor tennis players...
 
Knobby22 said:
As for the poor tennis players...
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I thought there was a roof there that could be closed and also air-conditioning? If so, why on earth wouldn't they just close the damn thing and keep the heat out?

Or am I thinking of the wrong place?
 
Smurf1976 said:
I thought there was a roof there that could be closed and also air-conditioning? If so, why on earth wouldn't they just close the damn thing and keep the heat out?

Or am I thinking of the wrong place?
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I think there are at least two with retractable roofs there. From what I understand, the reason they are kept open is that the Australian Open is classified as a open air tournament which some players are better suited to, so they want to maintain their advantage. They are only closed on very hot days when it is deemed to be to unsafe, something that has not yet been reached in the opinion of officials.
 
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