It’s a very valuable lesson to learn in sport and life in general; “it’s not over till it’s over” and that lesson has absolutely been applied to the race for Australia’s hottest spot of 2023. 

Image: Observed temperatures over the Pilbara at 2:25pm AWST, around the time Roebourne took the lead. 

Roebourne Airport, just to the east from Karratha, recorded a temperature of 49.5 °C just before 2:30pm AWST on Sunday December 31st 2023. In that moment, the town overtook Marble Bar and Onslow Airport’s tied high temperature for 2023 of 49.3 degrees with less than 10 hours to spare in the year. Talk about a last minute, come from behind win that admittedly, the town’s sweltering residents may not have been too thrilled with in the moment. 

These sizzling temperatures are the result of a deep heat trough sitting right over the Pilbara, responsible for the extreme heatwave gripping the region at the turn of the new year. Marble Bar, backing up it’s 49.3°C day from yesterday, topped out at 47.3°C just before 2pm while several other locations passed 45 degrees to close out 2023. 

Image: Roebourne Airport temperature and dewpoint graph for Sun 31st December 2023 

Looking at the graph of Roebourne’s temperature for yesterday, you can see just how extreme the heat was throughout the entire day. The mercury hovered above 30 degrees for the entire night and had climbed past 40°C before 8:30am. Just after 10am, the town had already surpassed 45°C and baked about that mark for more than 6 hours, only dropping back into the low 40s around 4:30pm! 

In addition to obtaining the title as Australia's hottest location of 2023, Roebourne also recorded its hottest ever December temperature, as well as just it’s 7th day in any month above 49°C, with records in the town dating back to 1887. 

Intense heat will continue over the region during the first week of 2024, with a brief reprieve possible as stifling heat gives way to normal summertime heat – still around the 40°C mark - late in the week. Then the race for 2024’s hot spot looks like heating up into the weekend with some early benchmarks getting set up.