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Aussie state preparing for severe Christmas heatwave

Xinhua, December 22, 2016 Adjust font size:

Victorians have been warned to brace for what could be the state's hottest Christmas in over 100 years.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has raised the status of the heatwave expected to hit Victoria on Christmas Eve to "severe" as temperatures are expected to go above 40 degrees Celsius (C) in parts of the state.

If temperatures soar above the forecasted 35 degrees C for Melbourne on Christmas Day then it will likely be the hottest Christmas in the city since 1907 when the city sweltered in 41 degree temperatures.

Rod Dixon, a senior forecaster at the BOM, said the heatwave would peak on Christmas Day.

"(It'll be) a scorcher for Christmas day, with winds tending around to the north and that'll push the temperature up to the mid-thirties, pretty warm conditions," Dixon told Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio on Thursday.

Chris Godfrey from the BOM said that though conditions would change, the heatwave would continue throughout the next week.

"However, it does look like we are going to get a shallow trough that will move across the state during Monday, so that means that for Monday and Tuesday, at least in southern Victoria, the maximum temperatures will scale back somewhat to around the high 20s or 30s.

"But having said that, it will continue to be humid, so it's not really true relief."

Mildura, in the state's northwest, is expecting temperatures in the high 30s and low 40s for the Christmas weekend.

Godfrey said it would be first stretch of severe heat in Victoria for the summer after an unseasonably cool start to the season.

"Up until now -- although a lot of people are saying that summer hasn't really started -- we have been getting the odd hot day," he said.

"What is different about this is this is the first period of sustained heat where it's going to continue and we're not really going to get very cool temperatures at night time to cool things off."

Despite the forecast heatwave, the Country Fire Authority (CFA) has not yet declared a total fire ban for the period.

Hot weather and strong winds in Victoria on Christmas last year fuelled bushfires in Wye River and Separation Creek, southwest of Melbourne on the iconic Great Ocean Road, destroying a third of homes in the region. Endit