It’s so hot in Australia that roads are melting.
Temperatures have reached record highs in December, with the hottest day clocking in at a sweltering 49.9 C in southern Australia.
In Port Augusta, a small city in the south, asphalt has started to melt on several roads.
The Port Augusta city council shared photos to its official Facebook page, showing portions of the street that had started to soften under the sun.
The heatwave has lasted four days, according to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM)’s recorded measurements. In some areas, temperatures have dropped, while soaring in others.
Last week, Perth resident Stu Pengelly cooked a 3.3-pound pork roast inside his old Datsun Sunny, showing that leaving children and animals inside parked cars is incredibly dangerous.
The inside of his car was a staggering 81 C at one point in the 10-hour cook.
“My warning is do not leave anyone or anything precious to you in a hot car, not for a minute,” he wrote in a Facebook post, which included photos of his car and the cooked roast, sliced on a platter.
Australia has also been hit with severe fires.
The BOM has projected a severe heatwave for the week, reporting that Dec. 17 was its hottest day on record at 40.9 C.
It exceeded the previous record of 40.3 C on Jan. 7, 2013.
On Wednesday, temperatures soared to 47.7 C in Birdsville, Queensland, 46.9 C in Mandora, Western Australia and similar levels in southern and central Australia.
The highest temperature reliably recorded in any location in Australia was 50.7 C in January 1960, at Oodnadatta, a desert settlement in the outback in South Australia.
High temperatures and strong winds are also fanning bushfires around Australia, including more than 100 in New South Wales, where heat and smoke have caused an increase in hospital admissions.
Cooler conditions are forecast for Friday.
—With files from Associated Press.
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