extreme

Hundreds told to evacuate as out-of-control bushfire threatens Victoria’s Otways amid record heat MELBOURNE, Australia — Authorities ordered hundreds of people to evacuate rural communities in southeast Australia as an out-of-control bushfire threatened towns in Victoria’s Otways region during a punishing heatwave that pushed temperatures toward state records. Emergency warnings expanded to additional rural districts as fire conditions deteriorated. “Due to extreme weather today, the fire is predicted to rapidly expand and…

Australia’s south sweltered through a brutal heatwave that pushed temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius in multiple cities on Thursday, triggering health warnings, straining power grids and igniting bushfires across already parched landscapes. Meteorologists said the conditions were the worst in six years, invoking comparisons to the 2019–2020 “Black Summer,” when catastrophic bushfires ravaged southeastern Australia and killed 33 people. Authorities warned the current burst of extreme heat could intensify fire risk in…

Climate change fueled a punishing year of extreme weather in 2025 that fell hardest on poorer communities, even as a cooling La Niña pattern took hold, according to a new assessment by World Weather Attribution, an international group of climate scientists. The annual report found that 2025 ranked among the three hottest years ever recorded, a sign of how far human-caused warming has pushed baseline temperatures. That backdrop turbocharged heatwaves, droughts, storms and wildfires across continents, widening a stark…

Wild spring heat and gale-force winds spark fires and chaos across Australia and New Zealand Immediate impact Wild, hot winds sweeping from Australia's interior into the southeast fanned dozens of bushfires and pushed spring temperatures to record highs in parts of Sydney, authorities said, as New Zealand faced rare "red" wind warnings and fires of its own across the Tasman. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said a powerful plume of hot air that built over the outback on Monday was moving across the southeast, producing a…