A weather station in Mardie, WA has just registered the highest temperature of the year in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere.

Northwestern Australia has been baking in an intense heatwave over the last several days, with a stubborn mass of hot air sending temperatures soaring into the mid-to-high forties day after day.

Monday will be Marble Bar's fifth consecutive day above 45ºC, and two of the next three days could get this hot as well. This heatwave means that every day so far this month has reached at least 43.5ºC in Marble Bar.

Image: Modelled surface air temperature over Australia on Monday afternoon.

While Marble Bar's prolonged run of heat has been remarkable, some other places have been even hotter.

Mardie, located near the Pilbara coast between Onslow and Karratha, reached a whopping 47.9ºC on Monday morning. This is less than one degree off the site's December record of 48.8ºC from 1986.

Mardie's 47.9ºC on Monday is the highest temperature officially recorded in Australia this year. According to Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist who documents extreme temperatures around the world, it's also the highest temperature of the year in the Southern Hemisphere.

Australia's highest December temperature on record was 49.9ºC at Nullarbor, SA in 2019.