AUSTRALIA'S VICTORIA FACING MOST SEVERE HEATWAVE SINCE 2009, AUTHORITIES WARN

MELBOURNE, Jan 26 (Bernama-Xinhua) -- Authorities have warned that the southeast Australian state of Victoria is facing its most severe heatwave since 2009, with temperatures forecast to exceed record-highs, reported Xinhua.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) had the highest-level extreme heatwave warnings in place for regions of Victoria and the neighbouring east coast state of New South Wales (NSW) as of Monday morning.

It said that severe to extreme heatwave conditions would persist in Victoria for an extended period, with maximum temperatures widely forecast to exceed 40 degrees Celsius.

According to BoM forecasts, the maximum temperature is expected to reach 44 degrees Celsius in Melbourne on Tuesday before falling back to the mid-20s from Wednesday.

In the small Victorian town of Ouyen, 385 km northwest of Melbourne, the maximum temperature is forecast to hit 49 degrees Celsius on Tuesday, which would surpass the state's record of 48.8 degrees Celsius set in February 2009.

Tim Wiebusch, Victoria's Emergency Management commissioner, said at a press conference on Sunday that the heatwave would be the state's most severe since 2009.

The 2009 heatwave in late January and early February was followed by the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, one of Australia's worst-ever bushfire disasters, in which 173 people were killed.

Emergency warnings remained in place on Monday for five fires across Victoria that have been burning since a severe heatwave earlier in January that triggered a statewide bushfire crisis.  

--BERNAMA-XINHUA