Perth is in the middle of a five-day heatwave that is dredging up memories of last year’s searing Christmas heat. Thankfully, this week’s hot weather won’t be as intense as last year’s and it will end just in time for the Christmas break.

Perth endured an exceptionally hot Christmas in 2021, reaching 42.8ºC on December 25 to set a record for the highest Christmas Day temperature ever reliably recorded in an Australian capital city. This beat the previous record of 42.1ºC at Adelaide in 1888.

This week, heat has returned to Perth during the run into Christmas, with the city on track to register five consecutive days at or above 35ºC between Monday December 19 and Friday December 23.

These temperatures are about 5 to 6ºC above average for this time of year, which is enough for this to be classified as a low intensity heatwave. This is the lowest category on the Bureau of Meteorology’s three-tiered heatwave scale.

Image: Forecast maximum surface air temperature on Friday, December 23, 2022, according to the ECMWF-HRES model.

Unlike 2021, this year’s heatwave will end just before Christmas and the city is only forecast to reach tops of 32ºC on Christmas Eve, 31ºC on Christmas Day and 28ºC on Boxing Day.

In fact, if Perth remains below 32.5ºC on December 25 as is forecast, this will be the city’s coolest Christmas Day in seven years.

The coldest Christmas Day on record in Perth was in 1945, when the temperature only reached as high as 19.7ºC.