Victorians have been desperate for ways to stay cool during this heat wave, with many parts of the state sweating through their hottest day of the year.
The mercury hit 37.3 degrees in Melbourne on Tuesday – the hottest day since January.
And there is no respite likely until Wednesday afternoon, with temperatures set to remain stubbornly in the mid-to-high 20s overnight.
On a sweltering day in Melbourne, Nathan 7, and sister Emma, 4, cooled off at Coles Fountain.Credit:Chris Hopkins
Ballarat (34.9 degrees), Horsham (39.4 degrees) and Wangaratta (37.1 degrees) also recorded their hottest days for the year.
The top temperature in the state on Tuesday was at Walpeup in the north-west, where it hit 40.9 degrees.
While many found solace in the air-conditioning on Tuesday, Annie Liu wanted to find a spot in the city where her two children – Emma, 4, and Nathan, 7 – could cool off while they played
Visiting Melbourne from Sydney, Liu struggled to find somewhere similar to where they’d usually head on a hot day – the playground at Darling Harbour, which is decked out with water fountains.
The family eventually found Coles Fountain at Parliament Garden, where the kids happily splashed around for a couple of hours before they returned to their hotel.
“It was quite hard to find a water park in Melbourne, many of them are pretty far out in the suburbs,” she said. “It was good we found the fountain.”
If another hot day strikes during their visit, Lui plans to make the hour-long trip to Adventure Park in Geelong.
Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Christie Johnson said much of the state would be dealing with overnight minimum forecasts in the mid-to-high 20s, likely making it the hottest night since 2018.
“We are in a heat wave – we have a heat wave warning out,” she said.
“[It] isn’t just a hot day; a heat wave is when we have, over a three-day period, unusually hot maximum and minimum temperatures. And we have seen that over the last few days over most of the state.
“This is important because the overnight minimum temperatures being hot doesn’t give the body a chance to recover. And it just increases the heat stress. So, the heat stress becomes cumulative over a number of days.”
Johnson said a cool change, which would include showers, was expected on Wednesday morning, but the warm conditions were expected to return for the New Year’s weekend.
The hot weather also prompted a warning on Tuesday from authorities about never leaving children unattended in cars.
Paramedics were called to almost 1300 cases of people locked in cars in the year from December 1, 2021, with some 30 per cent occurring last summer.
Ambulance Victoria reminded people that heatstroke was a life-threatening condition and must be treated seriously.
Call-outs by suburb
The 10 Melbourne suburbs where paramedics regularly called to help someone who’d been locked in a car (from December 1, 2021-November 30, 2022:
- Packenham – 24 cases
- Epping – 22 cases
- Frankston – 22 cases
- Craigieburn – 21 cases
- Hoppers Crossing – 20 cases
- Narre Warren – 19 cases
- Point Cook – 19 cases
- Cranbourne – 18 cases
- Werribee – 18 cases
- Tarneit – 15 cases
If anyone experienced seizures, confusion or stroke-like symptoms, or collapsed or was unconscious, it was important to phone 000 immediately, the ambulance service said.
For general complaints of feeling unwell, phone the nurse on call service on 1300 60 60 24 or seek advice from a doctor or pharmacist.
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