After many weeks of Western Australia copping the heat, the attention is now back to QLD.  A trough sitting over the Northern Territory and QLD is drawing a hot airmass into the region, and will linger over the next several days.

Although it's only the start of the month, we have seen some towns nearly hit their monthly maximum temperatures for March. There are plenty of QLD towns currently soaring above their average maximum for the month. Here are a few (as of Saturday 5th 12:30 EST): 

• Clermont Airport: 38.1C – 6.1C above average 
• Mackay: 34.2C – 5.5C above average 
• Townsville: 36.1C – 5.3C above average 
• Longreach: 39.4C – 4.6C above average
• Lochington: 37.7C – 5.1C above average

Taking a look at the average maximum temperature from the three most recent days (including today), various locations have smashed their climate averages: 

• Clermont Airport: 40.4C - 8C above average 
• Rockhampton: 38.4C - 8C above average 
• Lochington: 40.2C - 7.5C above average 
• Emerald: 40.2C - 7.5C above average 
• Biloela: 38.4C - 6.4C above average 

Figure 1: 2m Maximum temperatures at 23:00EDT Sunday 6th using ECMWF model. 

While this heat is useful for storm activity, the lack of moisture in the atmosphere are lowering chances over the coming days for inland parts. This is allowing those temperatures to rise rapidly with nothing to help reduce the heat. Conditions are a bit better along the coast, where we should see showers and extra cloud cover provide some relief from those climbing temperatures.  

The heat should stick around until the end of next week, before returning to Australia's interior, which I'm sure no one will miss. Showers and storms will push further inland around this time, keeping those extreme temperatures away.