On the far south coast of New South Wales, the prevailing breeze is a nor’easter. Over the past few days, the air temperature has been a balmy 22 degrees Celsius and the breeze, by 09:30, has picked up a little, sending gentle wafts of sea air across the beaches and township of Bermagui.
Aha! you say. A typical fine late spring morning with more of the same for the next week or so if history is any judge. A bit of rain wouldn’t go astray. The shower a few days back was good and it will come again in the not-too-distant future, if again, history is anything to go by.
Aha! again, because that’s where you would be wrong if you had been taking advice on forecasts from the Bureau of Guessology – sorry, Bureau of Meteorology (BOM).
The BOM has placed a vivid yellow line above its forecast for the far south coast for the next few days. The yellow banner includes the following: 1 heatwave warning for this location.
Crikey… you say, the present temperature is hovering around 22 and may go a few degrees higher. Since when has 26 degrees been a heat wave?
Well, I would suggest, since the BOM decided to rethink temperature. A sunny day with mid-20s air temperature is now hazardous to humans. Well, not all humans. According to the BOM ‘severe heatwaves can be dangerous for many people especially older people, babies, children, pregnant and breastfeeding women, people with medical conditions and people who are unwell’. The only ones apparently allowed to go to the beach are men and women who are between the ages of 18-55, provided they are not sick, not pregnant, and not breastfeeding.
The BOM has sound advice for those affected by such extreme temperatures – go to the shops, a library, or stay at home. A shopping centre is accordingly a place to escape the heat.
Well, there is no shopping centre in Bermagui. The nearest one is Bega, a 50-minute drive south but the BOM says it will be even hotter there – possibly 28 degrees. Crikey again… There is a country club but it doesn’t open until 11am. You could go there, but the BOM is silent on pubs and clubs.
There is also some advice on how to keep your cool: ‘Close your windows and draw blinds, curtains or awnings early in the day to keep the heat out of your home. If available use fans or air conditioners to keep cool.’ Sound advice and ideas that probably did not spring immediately to mind as the soothing nor’easter propels a cooling draft through the breezeway.
The air conditioner idea doesn’t seem to fit well with the BOM’s general wokery. One might assume that the use of energy to keep old folk, babies and kids cool would be frowned up – unless it was solar or wind-driven. But wait. There is no solar or wind power on the far south coast. Not yet anyway.
Perhaps perceiving 25 to 30 degrees Celsius to be a heat wave on the far south coast of NSW may aid the federal government’s argument when it comes to offshore turbine construction in the region.
Some years ago summer air temperatures reached into the high 40s. It was impossible then to go to the beach because the sand was too hot to walk on. The water temperature, however, remained a pleasant 18 degrees, far from boiling.
If the current air temperature of 22 degrees is considered a heat wave, even with the nor’easter aiding its reduction to around 16, what will the BOM consider 40 degrees to be? Perhaps like the signs along highways that show an arrow pointing towards catastrophic fire danger, there will be a ‘Catastrophic warning’ for air temperature.
Who knows what the advice will be? We will have to wait with seared lungs to find out.
