Southern Hemisphere Summer Already Setting Heat Records

A heat map of Argentina showing
last week's record breaking high
temperatures in the 
South American nation 

While we shiver up here in Vermont, at least it's hot somewhere.

Too hot, as it turns out. 

It's halfway through summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and heat records are falling all over the place, another sign of climate change. 

In Australia, a town in Western Australia got up to 123.3 degrees Fahrenheit, or 50.7 degrees Celsius. That ties the record set in 1960 for the hottest on record anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere. 

Two other Australian towns got to 122.9 degree, or 50.5 degrees Celsius.   Before last Thursday, Australia had gotten that hot only three times. Thursday, in one day, it happened in three different towns, reports Gizmodo.  

Several other areas of Western Australia reported record heat this week.  Dry conditions during the Australian spring are helping create conditions for the hot weather. Inevitably, bush fires are starting to break out. That makes Australians shudder, as the immense bush and forest fires of 2019-20 are still fresh in people's memory. 

Meanwhile, far away, Argentina is burning up in a record heat wave. Buenos Aires hit 106 degrees last Tuesday, the second hottest temperature on record in that city, behind 110 degrees in January, 1957.

The heat wave, which has been ongoing since the second half of December, strained electric utilities in Argentina, leaving 700,000 people without electricity in and near Buenos Aires. 

In Uruguay, the temperature reached 111 degrees, tying the record for the hottest on record in that nation.

The South American heat wave largely ended in the past couple of days with an onslaught of severe storms and flooding. Uruguay's Capital, Montevideo, suffered severe flooding from torrential rains. During the peak of the storm, four inches of rain fell in just two hours.